Yes, yes, I know it has been quite a while since I’ve managed to send out one of these branchy newslettery things...technical issues are a big part of it, anxiety, time...the one thing has not been a lack of desire or effort. In fact I actually finished a newsletter (sans story) last month but was unable to send it! But here, I hope, is finally the news you’ve all been patiently waiting for... As a side note, you may have noticed some changes...or even that you are receiving this for the first time in a while...or, possibly, are receiving it and did not expect it as you had unsubscribed or something in times past--Well, that's probably because I am, for the first time, using a new program. Please bear with us--if you do not wish to receive this, please, just politely unsubscribe, this new program will make sure that the unsubscribe will be permanent (one of the reasons I switched)--and it will make all of our lives easier than if you mark it as spam...Well, let's all hope this works and I'd just like to say...it sure is good to be back!
I usually start these things off with a recap...but the fact is that at this point I don’t even remember all of the amazing things that have happened since last we spoke back in, I don’t know, February? Gosh, we’ve had George Harrison’s birthday tribute, Valentine’s day, Ariana Gillis, TWO Frank and Birdie shows...the list goes on...Why don’t we just agree, this one time, to let bygones be bye-gones and move on to the news? I mean, I didn’t even mention Simon Beach...or the BluegrassOpen Stage...or our new Spring and Summer Hours....
...Speaking of our new Spring and Summer Hours (did you see how I did that?) That’s right, we are bringing back the 6 evening a week hours that we had before it got all cold and stuff outside! Those new, old hours are, (for those who didn’t bother to memorize them last time around,) as follows:
Tuesday-Saturday Lunch: 11:30am-2pm
Tuesday-Wednesday Dinner: 5-8pm
Thursday-Saturday Dinner: 5-9:30pm
Sunday, Rubber Boots Buffet: 2-8pm (Open Stage 3-6pm)
Closed Mondays (and for Easter and some other stuff like that...)
So there you have it. Many more chances to let us do the cooking! (and, of course, the washing up...we know why you really dine out...)
Art!
I do feel awful that I never got to tell you about last month’s art show in this forum; The North Grenville Photography Club have shown with us before and will, I’m sure, be back again. It was a wonderful show and I do hope that many of you got a chance to see it, even if I never did pass it along in an actual newsletter...
This month, we are featuring the Merrickville Artists’ Guild, another returning favourite, who have provided the following information:
The Merrickville Artists’ Guild artists' work will be on exhibition at the restaurant from April 4 until May 1. the branch is located at 15 Clothier St. East in Kemptville.
The Merrickville Artist’s Guild (MAG) is well known to the area producing fine art and craft for over 25 years. Their popular annual studio tour attracts hundreds of people to Merrickville and the surrounding area each fall. MAG is very excited to come together under one roof at the beautiful branch restaurant and celebrate the love for art that thrives in this area.
The artists of the guild provide a diverse array of unique art. The MAG talents include painters, mixed media artists, potters, glass blowers, glass artisans, a gourd artiste, jewelers, a textile creator, wood turners and an artist who works with iron at Canada’s oldest foundry.
For more information on the Merrickville Artist’s Guild please visit our website where you can view some of the artwork: http://www.merrickvilleartists.com/studiotour.htm
Music!
Let’s start with this weekend: the recipe for a JD Edwards from Winnipeg is apparently one part Blind Melon funk and one part Black Crowes’ blues, stir in a little Van Morrison add a dash of Ben Harper and serve...You get the idea...Tom Savage from Kingston is joining him and bringing his brand of good ol’ rock 'n' roll with a bit of a country twist, he’s got a pile of well-crafted songs inspired by dudes like Neil Young and Townes Van Zandt...you know what? It all sounds pretty darn good to me! (April 23rd, 9pm, $5) We’re closed this Sunday for the egg thing, but we’ll make up for it next Wednesday with a rousing evening featuring several of our Open Stage regulars; specifically Dr. Shawn, Katie Nolan and Mr. Doug Hendry, esq. (April 27th, 7pm, no cover) I’ll be returning to the stage as well that Saturday along with newcomer Rick Ventrella in support of local master songwriter, Andy McGaw—he’s our very own local version of John Prine or Gordon Lightfoot, his songs are valuable, timeless and important...and, of course, I’ll play some stuff, too. Show starts at 8 with emerging local talent, Rick Ventrella (April 30, 8pm, no cover). That Sunday, May 1st, is an open stage hosted by me (Chef Bruce) from 3-6pm, but the real May fun starts that Thursday with the girls from the prairies, Oh, My Darling! Their website offers up a great description: ‘prairie roots mixed with bluegrass, Appalachian old time, southern twang, and Franco-folk, makes their style a melting pot of musical languages,’ you may remember them from last time, you will certainly remember them from this time. I once had the privilege of seeing the Dixie Chicks in a bar about the size of our restaurant right before they got very, very big—it was not a show I regret seeing. Just sayin’. (May 5, 9pm, $10) That Friday will be the first ‘First Friday’ showcase of the regularly scheduled ‘First Thursday’ event (catch all that?) ‘the Frank and Birdie show’ featuring Frank Western and Birdie Whyte, two locals that you know so well that you don’t even know that you know them. (May 6, 7pm, no cover) That Saturday, May 7th, will be our first show with the luminous songstress, Ms. Tara Porter...Tara has found us through members of our vibrant local Yoga community and we look forward to seeing her poses and hearing her mantras...or her tasteful and well-crafted original songs...either way, I’m sure it will be a delightful and rewarding evening among friends. (May 7, 9pm, $5)
May 8th, Sunday, is our annual Mothers’ Day Brunch at the Municipal Centre in support of the Salvation Army Food Bank. This year’s event will again feature lots of local, organic and handmade mom day goodies that she is not required to either cook or clean up after...It will also include a taste of the Farmers’ Market, Bluegrass and Gospel music (with Kim Wallace and the fellows from County Road 44) and a bunch of good people coming together for a worthy cause. That’s Sunday, May 8 from 10am to 2pm at the Municipal Centre, ALL proceeds go to benefit the local Sally Ann...Do it for mom, she’s worth it! Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door, kids pay their age, volunteers welcome, and kids: one hour of volunteering buys a brunch for mom...Even you can afford that!
Wednesday May 11th brings us the dulcet, jazz influenced tones of Larra Skye, a Newmarket, Ontario native who has since travelled far on the success of her 2006 Jazz outing ‘the World Disappears’, for this tour, she will be playing and singing a new batch of acoustic, original pop inflected folk. (May 11, 7pm, no cover) That Saturday brings us Meg O’Malley Iredale all the way from Victoria, BC. I’ve been enjoying this songwriter quite a bit—follow the link below to get a taste of her indie/ethereal/thoughtful original tunes that hearken back to a an old-time folksy wonderland. (May 14th, 9pm,, $5) The following Tuesday brings back the one and only Ryan Cook for a listening room show, reserve now. ‘Nuff said. (Tuesday, May 17th, 8pm, $8) Join Ray Harris and his Bastard Sons’ of Bitches that Saturday for an evening of original as well as some well chosen country and country-rock covers! (May 21, 9pm, $5).
With yet another Tuesday night show, we will be bringing together a crew of local artists on May 24th to celebrate the birthday and the continuing story of one of the world’s all time greatest songwriters, Robert ‘Bob Dylan’ Zimmerman, the cipher, the poet, the priest...a man about who we can all agree to disagree. Show starts at 7pm, LOTS of people are performing.
CAB are back that Thursday at 8pm, no cover—this crazy two-piece old time rootsy blues band from Montreal tore up the room when they played here earlier this year as part of a 2 band show—now, on their own, we look forward to a whole evening of their magnificent Waits-y psych-blues swagger. Join the rest of K-ville for our premier event ‘The Dandelion Festival’ that weekend and see numerous bands on the main stage right outside our own front door.
I can’t tell you about everything that is coming up (yet...), but I should point out that yes, that is actually Lynn Miles (as in ‘THE Lynn Miles') playing on Saturday June 4th. We’ve already sold about half of the available seats, so if you’d like to come, the time to move is NOW!
Anyway, lots of good stuff coming up, we look forward to seeing you all!
Here’s that calendar again...
April:
Saturday 23 ~ Tom Savage from Kingston and JD Edwardsfrom Winnipeg ...9pm, $5 cover
Sunday 24 ~ closed for Egg Hunting Season
Wednesday 27 ~ Shawn Yakimovich, Katie Nolan and Doug Hendry; harmony, folk songs & lots of incredible strings ...7pm
Saturday 30 ~ Andy McGawand Chef Bruce with Rick Ventrella
May Calendar:
Sun May 1: ~ Open Stage 3-6pm
Thursday 5 ~ Oh, My Darling!Pickin' and singin with the ladies! Prairie roots mixed with bluegrass, Appalachian old time, southern twang, and Franco-folk, makes their style a melting pot of musical languages, 9pm, $10
Friday 8 ~ The Frank and Birdie Show featuring Frank Westernand Birdie Whyte... details TBA
Saturday 7 ~ Tara Porter...9pm, $5 Listening Room Show
Sunday 8 ~ Mother’s Day Brunch Salvation Army Fundraiser 10am-2pm at the Municipal Centre
Wednesday 11 ~ Larra Skye: sweet-voiced folk/pop songwriter from Toronto, singing songs from her second forthcoming album, "Wishing Tree" and unique renditions of popular tunes......7pm, no cover
Saturday 14 ~ Meg O’Mally Iredale 9pm, $5 cover
Sunday 15 ~ Open Stage 3-6pm
Tuesday 17 ~ Ryan Cook! Listening Room Show, $8, 8pm
Saturday 21 ~ Ray Harris and the Bastard Sons of Bitches, $5, 9pm
Sunday 22 ~ Closed for TWO-FOUR
Tuesday 24 ~ Bob Dylan Birthday Tribute, contact chef Bruce to sign up...8pm, free!
Thursday 26 ~ CAB, Montreal old time blues...8pm, no cover
Friday, Saturday, Sunday May 27, 28, 29: Dandelion Festival!
June Calendar:
Saturday 4 ~ Lynn Miles, Holy Smokes!...9pm, $20 cover
Friday 10 ~ Petunia!
Saturday 11 ~ Greg Kelly and the Broken Window Philharmonic...9pm, $5 cover Saturday 18 ~ John Allaireand Bill Toms...9pm, cover TBA
Sunday 19 ~ Dave Martel... (not confirmed, cross your fingers!)
Saturday 25 ~ Lynne Hanson, ...9pm, $8
Thursday 30 ~ Ariana Gillis
July Calendar:
Saturday 2 ~ Brock Zeman
Tuesday 5 ~ Bruce and Ringo's Birthday Jam featuring songs of the Beatles--sign up with your friendly neighbourhood chef if you want to play!
Saturday 9 ~ Huntley Slim
Saturday 16 ~ Brandon Agnew
authentic texas specialties, amazing live music, incredible selection of local, microbrewed draft beers and locally sourced and organic foods...
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
Molecular Gastronomy Domine
Alice Waters let me down this week. It’s not the first time, won’t be the last, I’m sure. I was listening to a riveting episode of a podcast called Freakonomics Radio entitled ‘Waiter, there’s a Physicist in My Soup!’ The podcast revolved around the no longer quite so new trend of ‘molecular gastronomy’ and the work of physicist/cookbook author Nathan Myhrvold, whose monstrous tome ‘Modernist Cuisine’ will be hitting the shelves sometime soon. Alice, it seems, was brought on to ‘balance’ the conversation but she, I must admit, left me wishing for more.
I first encountered ‘modernist cuisine’ while working in San Francisco, when I started to hear rumblings on the fringes of the culinary world about a Spanish chef, Ferran Adria, who was making waves, winning awards, changing the game. At first blush, I was enamoured, he seemed to represent a next logical step for folks like me, folks who wanted to push the creative boundaries of high end cuisine. Millennium, where I worked at the time, also relied heavily on unusual techniques to translate our vegan concepts for a mass audience. I read about Adria’s deconstructionist ideas and began to incorporate them into my own dishes—rethinking everything from tamales to bouillabaisse...I found myself asking “what is it about this dish that makes it specifically ‘this’ dish?” and in the answers, often, I found lots of room to play.
I also read about Heston Blumenthal, owner of Britain’s The Fat Duck, perennial ‘second best restaurant in the world’ (placing, for many of the last several years, just behind Adria’s ElBulli in the British magazine Restaurant’s prestigious annual poll) and another proponent of high concept technique. Other names appeared in connection with this movement, Herve Thís, Nicolas Kurti, José Andrés, and my personal favourite, Harold Mcgee, a food scientist who made a name for himself by debunking old wives tales (like the one about how searing the meat ‘seals in the juices’) with a combination of accessible writing and meticulous attention to detail as well as to the scientific method.
I liked these ideas about deconstruction, about re-imagining what was possible with food, even about pulling techniques from one discipline (like pastry or Asian) to another. Savoury ice creams and sorbets became common (at least in our world), foams and whips, intentionally broken emulsions, layering hot, cold, raw and cooked foods in new ways to achieve unusual and even incredible results. In many ways what we were doing was adding value to ingredients, providing a justification for our prices in the same way that our choice of plates, linens, décor and even our music helped to ease our patrons into a more ‘high dollar’ kind of mood.
In the next few years, I read about and was a witness to even more elaborate techniques; flash freezing with liquid nitrogen, sous-vide cooking (poaching foods for hours or days in a water bath inside vacuum sealed bags), dehydrators, vacuum infusions, using blowtorches and various chemical reactions with calcium chloride, sodium alginate and other pharmaceutical sounding ingredients to achieve new textures, new flavours, and new presentations. Edible printing on edible paper, smoking a chocolate cake in a pipe...The weirder the idea, the more likely it was that one of these molecular gastronomy types had tried it.
It was fun, but over time, I had to ask myself, “Is this real food? Is this important?” It certainly felt important, to be a part of the ‘new cuisine’, but the more closely I examined it, the less important it seemed. My chef, Eric Tucker, always kept a good head on his shoulders about that stuff. He liked to cook pretty close to the mark—he had a wild streak, for sure, that would come out at wine pairing dinners, for New Years Eve or for other special events; and he certainly indulged my whims and those of the rest of the kitchen staff, investing in foaming canisters and the like, things like agar gelatin and xanthum gum; but Eric was, at heart, a farmers’ market kind of guy. He liked the best produce around, the most unusual and fun ingredients, new varieties of basil or peppers, white asparagus from this guy, stinging nettles or wild cinnamon cap mushrooms from that. He favoured ethnic preparations, traditional dishes with a history of comfort. Where I found that I reveled in the possibilities of experimenting with various meat substitutes to replicate or expand on the meat dishes of fine cuisines, he seemed to seek out traditional recipes that had never had a meat component to begin with, or if it did, it was something we could easily replace with a minimum amount of distraction.
I also met a lot of farmers in this period, working with Eric, and as his sous chef, I found myself fielding several calls a day from various purveyors, farmers, producers, foragers, characters and even outlaws. Eric would have a line out on huitlacoche, an edible fungus that grows on ears of corn, and months later would receive a call and have to drive to a parking lot in the suburbs to trade brown paper bags of infected ears for wads of cash like some kind of mid level drug dealer. Shifty types would appear by the dumpster late at night with some weird variety of peach they had scaled a fence to secure. These farmers and foragers had no interest in molecular gastronomy, they were interested in botany, maybe a bit of biology; it was a science, to be sure, of a different sort.
I also discovered some other chefs who were adding value to their food through entirely different means. Technique, yes, but technique informed by a combination of traditional methods and the new science. Chefs like Alice Waters, Patrick O’Connell, Paul Bertolli and Thomas Keller. Chefs who added value the way Eric did, by shopping well, seeking out the best of the best, and also by honouring the generations of technicians who had gone before.
Molecular gastronomy is exciting and fun and is not going anywhere anytime soon; as long as there are people out there who are willing to pay for a value added experience, for flash and bang, for a bit of excitement. But my interest in its merits, over time, has certainly begun to fade. As it has, I feel, with the gastronomic community as a whole—this past year’s winner of Restaurant magazine’s prestigious best restaurant in the world award was a restaurant named Noma in Copenhagen that specializes in the ultra local and the pure. Noma’s Chef Rene Redzepi is an almost literal bridge between the two worlds I am attempting to describe; he has trained with both Ferran Adria and Thomas Keller. His award, in my mind, marks a fork (knife and spoon?) in the road of our collective culinary journey. His restaurant points to a path that doesn’t lead away from this new cuisine; it leads through it.
I believe that some of the techniques and approaches pioneered by molecular gastronomy will stick; some already have; food and cooking, after all, is science. In that regard, it’s just a new name for an old idea. Many of the grand techniques developed by great chefs over time were simply the best science they had to work with in their day or were the result of the same experimental techniques of trial and error (and/or happy accidents) that drive mainstream science today. Escoffier would have welcomed a physicist in his kitchen in much the same way as our top chefs do today. But I don’t think that molecular gastronomy will subvert, supplant or replace our existing cuisine as a whole, either.
So how did Alice Waters let me down? Alice, in a word, is a highly important symbol for the organic and local foods movement. Some would say that she has been the engine of change. Yet when she spoke on this show about her love of simplicity, of her annoyance with high concept technique, she honestly came across as a Luddite. And possibly even a little bit dotty. I, at first, blamed the edit—the hosts of the show have worked with Myhrvold in the past, and I can’t help but feel that this episode, while fascinating, was also a bit of a plug for his upcoming six volume widely acclaimed (even before being published) new encyclopedic treatise on all of the techniques developed so far in this new and fascinating world of high concept ‘modernist cuisine.’ Myhrvold was certainly the focus and Alice just didn’t read as well in this show. I felt annoyed that she didn’t ask (or didn’t get to ask...) what seemed to me like the most important questions, the ones that keep me up at night, the real reason that I don’t think molecular gastronomy will be changing the way we eat on the whole anytime soon. The questions that I would like to ask are these: “Is all this important? Does this really matter?”
Does tapioca starch infused seaweed caviar help to feed the hungry? Does smoking chocolate cake in a pipe help to clean up the environment? Does three-quarters of the world living on less than two dollars a day in any way benefit from seawater foam or bacon ice cream? I don’t know. Granted, those folks aren’t eating at Chez Panisse either (Alice Waters’ famous culinary Mecca), but at least some of the food science that I associate with the movement she has come to symbolize, the science of organic and sustainable farming, of biodiversity, of local foods, of clean, healthy and community building food sourcing, of finding harmony between our food choices and the things in which we believe; at least those ideals have a chance of changing something more than how exciting our expensive meal will be tonight. I guess that’s why I felt like she let me down. But that’s OK, because I can always just ask those questions myself, right?
You know what? So can you.
I first encountered ‘modernist cuisine’ while working in San Francisco, when I started to hear rumblings on the fringes of the culinary world about a Spanish chef, Ferran Adria, who was making waves, winning awards, changing the game. At first blush, I was enamoured, he seemed to represent a next logical step for folks like me, folks who wanted to push the creative boundaries of high end cuisine. Millennium, where I worked at the time, also relied heavily on unusual techniques to translate our vegan concepts for a mass audience. I read about Adria’s deconstructionist ideas and began to incorporate them into my own dishes—rethinking everything from tamales to bouillabaisse...I found myself asking “what is it about this dish that makes it specifically ‘this’ dish?” and in the answers, often, I found lots of room to play.
I also read about Heston Blumenthal, owner of Britain’s The Fat Duck, perennial ‘second best restaurant in the world’ (placing, for many of the last several years, just behind Adria’s ElBulli in the British magazine Restaurant’s prestigious annual poll) and another proponent of high concept technique. Other names appeared in connection with this movement, Herve Thís, Nicolas Kurti, José Andrés, and my personal favourite, Harold Mcgee, a food scientist who made a name for himself by debunking old wives tales (like the one about how searing the meat ‘seals in the juices’) with a combination of accessible writing and meticulous attention to detail as well as to the scientific method.
I liked these ideas about deconstruction, about re-imagining what was possible with food, even about pulling techniques from one discipline (like pastry or Asian) to another. Savoury ice creams and sorbets became common (at least in our world), foams and whips, intentionally broken emulsions, layering hot, cold, raw and cooked foods in new ways to achieve unusual and even incredible results. In many ways what we were doing was adding value to ingredients, providing a justification for our prices in the same way that our choice of plates, linens, décor and even our music helped to ease our patrons into a more ‘high dollar’ kind of mood.
In the next few years, I read about and was a witness to even more elaborate techniques; flash freezing with liquid nitrogen, sous-vide cooking (poaching foods for hours or days in a water bath inside vacuum sealed bags), dehydrators, vacuum infusions, using blowtorches and various chemical reactions with calcium chloride, sodium alginate and other pharmaceutical sounding ingredients to achieve new textures, new flavours, and new presentations. Edible printing on edible paper, smoking a chocolate cake in a pipe...The weirder the idea, the more likely it was that one of these molecular gastronomy types had tried it.
It was fun, but over time, I had to ask myself, “Is this real food? Is this important?” It certainly felt important, to be a part of the ‘new cuisine’, but the more closely I examined it, the less important it seemed. My chef, Eric Tucker, always kept a good head on his shoulders about that stuff. He liked to cook pretty close to the mark—he had a wild streak, for sure, that would come out at wine pairing dinners, for New Years Eve or for other special events; and he certainly indulged my whims and those of the rest of the kitchen staff, investing in foaming canisters and the like, things like agar gelatin and xanthum gum; but Eric was, at heart, a farmers’ market kind of guy. He liked the best produce around, the most unusual and fun ingredients, new varieties of basil or peppers, white asparagus from this guy, stinging nettles or wild cinnamon cap mushrooms from that. He favoured ethnic preparations, traditional dishes with a history of comfort. Where I found that I reveled in the possibilities of experimenting with various meat substitutes to replicate or expand on the meat dishes of fine cuisines, he seemed to seek out traditional recipes that had never had a meat component to begin with, or if it did, it was something we could easily replace with a minimum amount of distraction.
I also met a lot of farmers in this period, working with Eric, and as his sous chef, I found myself fielding several calls a day from various purveyors, farmers, producers, foragers, characters and even outlaws. Eric would have a line out on huitlacoche, an edible fungus that grows on ears of corn, and months later would receive a call and have to drive to a parking lot in the suburbs to trade brown paper bags of infected ears for wads of cash like some kind of mid level drug dealer. Shifty types would appear by the dumpster late at night with some weird variety of peach they had scaled a fence to secure. These farmers and foragers had no interest in molecular gastronomy, they were interested in botany, maybe a bit of biology; it was a science, to be sure, of a different sort.
I also discovered some other chefs who were adding value to their food through entirely different means. Technique, yes, but technique informed by a combination of traditional methods and the new science. Chefs like Alice Waters, Patrick O’Connell, Paul Bertolli and Thomas Keller. Chefs who added value the way Eric did, by shopping well, seeking out the best of the best, and also by honouring the generations of technicians who had gone before.
Molecular gastronomy is exciting and fun and is not going anywhere anytime soon; as long as there are people out there who are willing to pay for a value added experience, for flash and bang, for a bit of excitement. But my interest in its merits, over time, has certainly begun to fade. As it has, I feel, with the gastronomic community as a whole—this past year’s winner of Restaurant magazine’s prestigious best restaurant in the world award was a restaurant named Noma in Copenhagen that specializes in the ultra local and the pure. Noma’s Chef Rene Redzepi is an almost literal bridge between the two worlds I am attempting to describe; he has trained with both Ferran Adria and Thomas Keller. His award, in my mind, marks a fork (knife and spoon?) in the road of our collective culinary journey. His restaurant points to a path that doesn’t lead away from this new cuisine; it leads through it.
I believe that some of the techniques and approaches pioneered by molecular gastronomy will stick; some already have; food and cooking, after all, is science. In that regard, it’s just a new name for an old idea. Many of the grand techniques developed by great chefs over time were simply the best science they had to work with in their day or were the result of the same experimental techniques of trial and error (and/or happy accidents) that drive mainstream science today. Escoffier would have welcomed a physicist in his kitchen in much the same way as our top chefs do today. But I don’t think that molecular gastronomy will subvert, supplant or replace our existing cuisine as a whole, either.
So how did Alice Waters let me down? Alice, in a word, is a highly important symbol for the organic and local foods movement. Some would say that she has been the engine of change. Yet when she spoke on this show about her love of simplicity, of her annoyance with high concept technique, she honestly came across as a Luddite. And possibly even a little bit dotty. I, at first, blamed the edit—the hosts of the show have worked with Myhrvold in the past, and I can’t help but feel that this episode, while fascinating, was also a bit of a plug for his upcoming six volume widely acclaimed (even before being published) new encyclopedic treatise on all of the techniques developed so far in this new and fascinating world of high concept ‘modernist cuisine.’ Myhrvold was certainly the focus and Alice just didn’t read as well in this show. I felt annoyed that she didn’t ask (or didn’t get to ask...) what seemed to me like the most important questions, the ones that keep me up at night, the real reason that I don’t think molecular gastronomy will be changing the way we eat on the whole anytime soon. The questions that I would like to ask are these: “Is all this important? Does this really matter?”
Does tapioca starch infused seaweed caviar help to feed the hungry? Does smoking chocolate cake in a pipe help to clean up the environment? Does three-quarters of the world living on less than two dollars a day in any way benefit from seawater foam or bacon ice cream? I don’t know. Granted, those folks aren’t eating at Chez Panisse either (Alice Waters’ famous culinary Mecca), but at least some of the food science that I associate with the movement she has come to symbolize, the science of organic and sustainable farming, of biodiversity, of local foods, of clean, healthy and community building food sourcing, of finding harmony between our food choices and the things in which we believe; at least those ideals have a chance of changing something more than how exciting our expensive meal will be tonight. I guess that’s why I felt like she let me down. But that’s OK, because I can always just ask those questions myself, right?
You know what? So can you.
February 2011
Hi Everybody!
Wow, what a great month! January has been hopping; I guess you folks must have missed us while we were gone... We have especially enjoyed sharing what we do with lots of new folks who heard about us from the Citizen’s very nice little article at the top of the month (...read it here!) as well as welcoming home lots of our regulars and dear old friends. We’ve had lots of great music; I know it’s unfair to choose, but my personal favourites had to be a tie between the lightning quick bluegrass of the Dusty Drifters and the unforgettable songs of the immortal Andy McGaw (a show for which I also happened to have the best seat in the house...) But we also had lots of other great nights with Jazz-fro-Cuban-Latin maestros Mango Upstart, the Unseen Strangers and their pals in Cab, and another close contender for the top spot, Tara Holloway, a new friend we will surely be seeing a lot more of in the future (don’t believe me? Stop by this Sunday!)
Coming up we have lots of new stuff; how about a movie night? How about two literary evenings featuring well known and interesting authors? How about an art show and vernissage featuring some of Ottawa’s hippest young musicians? To find out about all these things, and, of course Valentine’s Day, read on!
Valentine’s Day:
First of all: Yes, We Will Be Open Monday, February 14th for Valentine’s Day! And yes, for those of you more inclined to get in your V day celebrating on the weekend nights prior to that Monday (you know, so can ‘sleep in’ the next day...), we will also be offering our special 3 course menu of traditional aphrodisiac foods for not just Monday, but for Friday and Saturday (February 11th and 12th) as well. Here’s a preview of the Aphrodisiac Menu:
the introduction:
choice of:
oysters on the half shell; lime, chili, mixed greens and yuzu vinaigrette
or
truffled beet and mushroom ravioli; cream sauce, local goat chevre
the seduction:
choice of:
the striptease; red wine marinated 6-ounce o’brien farms striploin, chocolate-lovage ‘magic love butter’, mashed potatoes and seasonal veggies
or
the ménage a trois; lyon’s chicken prepared three ways: barbecued wings and drumlets, a parmesan and herb stuffed thigh roulade and a breast tender risotto
or
the love letter; a filet of local trout steamed en papillotte (in parchment) with rice noodles, sweet peppers, lime, ginger and coconut milk
or
hearts on fire; a whole steamed tender artichoke, chili-tomato hollandaise, olives, roasted peppers, white bean ragout
the petit mort:
chocolate fondue for 2; cake, meringue, cookies, fresh fruit, molten dark chocolate...
Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Where you go next is entirely up to you, but prepared, these traditional aphrodisiac foods may cause unexpected and completely desirable outcomes...
February Art:
The following rundown of this month’s art show and this Sunday’s vernissage was provided by the artist:
Ottawa oil painter A. James Brummel brings his "head to head" show to Kemptville! That's right, we're hitting the road and heads are going to roll. Come and see what all the fuss has been about. And stay for the branch's bountiful buffet and LIVE music!
"head to head" is a collection of portraits depicting Ottawa musicians painted on used drum skins (or heads). The drummers (Edwards, Essoudry, Guerrero, Ouimet and Sheridan) were painted on skins from their own kits. The exhibition was originally shown at the Shanghai Restaurant in Chinatown. With many of the musicians performing, and generally getting intoxicated. One of whom had a heart attack the next day. But it wasn't the art or the alcohol--most likely hockey was to blame. The important thing was that his portrait sold. And that he's doing a show at Irene's in February.
Enter "head to head.2"...
There will be eight (8) bouts featuring 16 O-town heavy weights!
1) DAVE EDWARDS VS MIKE ESSOUDRY
2) KELLYLEE EVANS VS BILL GUERRERO
3) TARA HOLLOWAY VS MEREDITH LUCE (cat fight)
4) MATT KIDD VS MARK ALEXANDER MCINTYRE
5) ASHLEY NEWALL VS DAVE NORRIS (grudge match)
6) GLENN NUOTIO VS MATT OUIMET
7) AMANDA RHEAME VS BRAD SUCKS
8) BRIAN SIMMS VS MICHAEL SHERIDAN (mud wrestling)
http://www3.sympatico.ca/a moamasam/
http://www.facebook.com/pa ges/A-James-Brummel/777389 6423
Author Events:
http://www.bcachievement.com/nonfiction/finalist.php?id=25
Join Dr. John FizGerald, acclaimed British Columbian non-fiction author, for a reading at the branch on Thursday, February 17th at 7:30pm. Half of the proceeds from the evening’s dinner will be donated to the Kemptville District Hospital Foundation.
This event is hosted by the branch and Jamie Laidlaw, a local resident and a friend of Dr. FitzGerald who has this to say about his old friend:
James and I are lifelong friends who went to UCC together and more importantly to each other's birthday parties. Even then he was an astonishing writer with skills that were far beyond the reach of the rest of us. Luckily, he has chosen the difficult and rewarding path of historical reconstruction and personal reconciliation. His immense effort rewards the reader with insight into 20th century Toronto and the evolution of health care as well as his own bold inquiry into the makeup of his own psyche. This makes, "What Disturbs Our Blood" at least two books in one. It is a both a detective story and a personal journey. Each passage and page brings a new hard won insight and the reader's attention never flags. The rewards include the appreciation of a "lost" genius, a deeper knowing of a gifted father and the rescue of his own well being. In total, the redemption of the male line of the FitzGeralds of Drayton, Ontario and Balmoral Avenue, Toronto.
Count among James's fans the distinguished historian Michael Bliss (Sir William Osler), the author and doctor Gabor Mate (The Hungry Ghosts) and recent BC Achievement Foundation winner John Valliant (Golden Spruce, The Tiger) and Noah Richler one of this year's judges, (This Is My Country, What's Yours?).
Please join us for a unique experience as well as in support of a great cause.
--Jamie Laidlaw
And then, on Sunday, February 27, 2011 at 7pm: A Kitchen Table Meeting with award-winning author Thomas Pawlick
Enjoy a kitchen table meeting with award winning author Thomas Pawlick. The event will be a casual and open discussion with Thomas, after an opening introduction by the author to set the stage. Our foodie friends will certainly recognize him as the author of the best selling The End of Food, a must read for folks interested in understanding our food choices...
Thomas will open the discussion at 7 PM - but come and enjoy the branch restaurant's famous Rubber Boots Buffet from any time after 2 PM.
About the Author: Thomas F. Pawlick has more than thirty-five years of experience as a journalist and editor, specializing in science, environmental, and agricultural reporting. He is a three-time winner of the Canadian Science Writers’ Association Award and received a National Magazine Award for his agricultural reporting. Pawlick holds a masters degree in farm journalism and is the author of ten books, including the best-selling The End of Food and War in the Country. He served six years as chief editor of Ceres magazine, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's flagship publication. He currently lives on a 150-acre farm in eastern Ontario.
Movie Night:
Food, Inc. Wednesday, February 16th, 6:45pm
The following news-bite was provided by the inimitable Mr. Douglas Hendry, esq.:
So there you sit, in front of your food...and you are about to take your next bite. But as you read this, you stop, look at the food on your plate and ask yourself some questions. What are you putting in your mouth? Where does this food come from? And what is in it, really?
The food industry is a very powerful one. It controls modern society in ways which most of us never think about. We have long ago given up the ability to feed ourselves, for the most part, and so we rely upon others to feed us but pay very little heed to either how our food is grown, how it is processed or how it gets to our table.
More and more people are beginning to ask these questions and to realize that perhaps we should be paying more attention. If you are one of them, Sustainable North Grenville invites you to a free screening of the movie Food Inc. to be held at the branch restaurant on February 16th at 7pm. This movie takes a look at how food is manufactured and what is good and bad about the process. After watching it, it's likely that you'll never look at your breakfast quite the same way again.
So come on out and savour this movie. Afterwards we'll have a free-range discussion [pun intended] while enjoying some snacks courtesy of our friends at the branch. For more information, please contact the links below:
Information about Food Inc
http://www.foodincmovie.com/
Sustainable North Grenville
http://www.sustainablenorthgrenville.ca/
February Music:
First, a note on our new ‘Listening Room Shows’
After four years of trying and sometimes succeeding (and sometimes, well, not so much...) with our grand project of being both a great venue for music and a great restaurant at the same time, we have finally decided to try something a little bit different. We will continue, of course, to do both things, but after to talking to artists, fans, and interested folks like you in order to figure out the best direction to go, we have decided that maybe it’s time to put a little space between the music and the food. Not a lot, mind you; the branch has always been and will always be a restaurant first and our commitment to local and organic foods will always be our primary mission.
But maybe it’s time to give some of the amazing artists who so regularly join us at the branch just a little more space to breathe. What does this mean? Well, first off, we will be pushing our start times back from between 7 and 8 to 9pm. Why? We’ve all come to the conclusion that dinner is a time for people to talk to each other, not necessarily to focus on the music. We feel that moving back the start time will provide a little break and allow folks to change gears between dinner and the music in order for both events to become a little more meaningful.
Second, we will be changing our policy of paying bands out of a percentage of sales and paying them, instead, with a door charge, also known as a cover. Again, why? This is for the benefit of the artist. Because we have such a small room, which, granted, is one of the things that makes a show here so special, we are also in a position of essentially paying all of our artists the same whether folks came out to see them, or to have dinner, to just have a drink, or whatever. A cover charge is a statement, on behalf of the music consumer, that “I have come to see this artist”; it is a token of respect, a chance to give directly.
Music in a small, acoustically wonderful room with stellar harmonics like ours can be magical, it can transport an audience well beyond what they are expecting from a night’s entertainment, and, for the artist, it can make playing at the branch almost like having an extra, secret band member. Unfortunately, that same room, can also have the unfortunate side effect of making our conversational speaking voices a real distraction, not only for all of the other paying customers, but also, even, for the musician we are all there to support.
Our hope is that by separating the dinner service from the music a bit, and by asking you to directly contribute to the artists, we can all benefit. Not only with better shows and better artists, but with evenings that might even change how you appreciate music for the rest of your life. There will be exceptions, of course, a blues band or a dance outfit doesn’t necessarily require or even want the same sense of decorum as a singer (well, some of them, anyway) sitting behind an acoustic guitar, but my guess is that we’ll know when it’s right, that if we’re all in this together, we’ll see by the looks on our neighbour’s faces. I guess that what we are asking, as of this month, is that when you see a show, like the one coming up this weekend and like the ones coming up throughout this and the next several months; the shows that are advertised with the later start time, with the cover charge, and with the name ‘listening room show’ attached is that we all come prepared to do just that. Listen. The benefits could change music in Kemptville for us all...Let’s just think of it as a next step in providing a venue for the next level of talent...and if that statement tweaks your interest, why don’t you stop by and ask us just exactly what it means...;-)
And now, are you ready to hear about our first ‘listening room show?’
Meredith Luce will be recorded live at the branch this Saturday (February 5th). Meredith Luce, accompanied by Eric Vieweg on lead guitar, will be performing a slew of new songs. The show will be recorded by Dean Watson of the Gallery Studio for use on Meredith's forthcoming album. Meredith has many new songs that she has written over the last couple of years, including a few co-writes with former Mandates band member David Gaudet. She is excited to showcase her new, edgier material on her next album, which she expects to release in the fall. (9pm, $5)
"These recordings will be a jumping off point, creating momentum and inspiration for the new album. I would love to include a few live tracks on the disc, or even release a bonus live CD, depending on what we get from this show! I can't wait to graduate in May and hit the ground running with this new project!"
And on to the rest of the month... I’m going to include Sunday’s (February 6th) vernissage in this section as well, for even though it is technically and art event, it is fairly likely that the Open Stage will be populated with a slightly, let’s just say, ‘above average’ talent pool. Fans of any of the folks featured on the wall for this month’s art show, might want to stop by and be a part of the fun... Coming up next weekend, (Saturday, February 12th) Ben and Heather Mullin will be performing a sweet love-song driven dinner music set to help get those Valentine’s Day juices flowing. And fans of the saccharine, the sweet and possibly the sarcastic are also welcome to join us for a Love Song Themed Open Stage that Sunday (February 13). Mark Beach, our long lost little brother, will be making the long trip down from Montreal that Monday for a special Valentine’s day show. This Creeep knows his way around more than one sexy song; in fact, I’m afraid he just might be the most powerful aphrodisiac offered on that night’s aphrodisiac themed menu—this show will be his first in the area for quite some time—I’d recommend wrangling your significant other and booking this date. I mean, unless you just don’t like things that are really, really good. Just sayin’.
Trevor Alguire will be back in town on Saturday, February 19th for our second listening room show (9pm, $10). It would be tough to pick a more listenable, amiable and likeable guy—tickets for this event are already starting to move, so let us know and soon! That Sunday (Feb 20th) is my Loose and Juicy acoustic jam for this month, so dust off yer singin’ shoes and come give me a holler!
The next Friday, February 25th, is, you guessed it, another special event; the George Harrison Birthday Tribute. George was often called the silent Beatle, but there is nothing silent about the treasure trove of songs this mild mannered, underappreciated genius left behind. When I ask a Beatle fan who their favourite Beatle was, it is invariably Paul or John; when I ask a musician, it is almost always George... If you don’t believe me, you should have seen how quickly folks signed up to be a part of this birthday tribute. We’ve got over a dozen folks from all over the area who want to perform, including Lisa Poushinsky, Christo Graham, Ray Harris, Greg Kelly, Doug Hendry, Katie Nolan, Shawn Yakimovitch, David Boschaart, David Shanahan, Jon-Laurie Beaumont and Dave Scully; the evening will be hosted by Ben Mullin and me, with a rhythm section comprised of Jay Williams on bass and Mark Ettinger on drums. Fans of the Dark Horse, of the Wilbury, of the Beatle should rejoice, here comes the sun! Or something...(p.s.,if anyone knows a sitar player, we'd love to have them along for the ride!!)
Brock Zeman will be performing that Saturday night (February 26th); this will be a fun chance to see this raucous country rocker, Carleton Place’s answer to Steve Earle, blastin out his crazy good originals for our third listening show. I recommend an extra pair of boots for this one, in case you wear out the first! (9pm, $5)
Saturday 5: live recording with Meredith Luce and Eric Vieweg--9pm $5.00 cover *listening room show
Sunday 6: vernissage for "Head to Head" featuring the art of A. James Brummels and special guests??!! 2-8pm
Saturday 12: Ben and Heather Mullin--Love Songs and Valentines...8pm
Sunday 13: Love Song Open Stage--3-6pm
Monday 14: Special Aphrodisiac Valentines Menu with the sexy music of Mark Beach....8pm
Saturday 19: Trevor Alguire; alt-country singer songwriter...special listening show starts at 9 pm; $10.00 cover *listening room show
Sunday 20: Chef Bruce's Loose and Juicy Acoustic Jam~ 3-6pm
Friday 25: George Harrison birthday tribute hosted by Ben Mullin and Chef Bruce --sign up at the restaurant if you'd like to sing a tune or 2--or talk to Ben or Bruce...starts at 8pm, ends when we say "Here Comes the Sun"
Saturday 26: Brock Zeman alt country rocker--Ottawa's most entertaining country rock original--special listening show starts at 9pm: $5.00 cover-----------
Sunday 27: Open Stage--it's open, come on in! *listening room show
Wow, what a great month! January has been hopping; I guess you folks must have missed us while we were gone... We have especially enjoyed sharing what we do with lots of new folks who heard about us from the Citizen’s very nice little article at the top of the month (...read it here!) as well as welcoming home lots of our regulars and dear old friends. We’ve had lots of great music; I know it’s unfair to choose, but my personal favourites had to be a tie between the lightning quick bluegrass of the Dusty Drifters and the unforgettable songs of the immortal Andy McGaw (a show for which I also happened to have the best seat in the house...) But we also had lots of other great nights with Jazz-fro-Cuban-Latin maestros Mango Upstart, the Unseen Strangers and their pals in Cab, and another close contender for the top spot, Tara Holloway, a new friend we will surely be seeing a lot more of in the future (don’t believe me? Stop by this Sunday!)
Coming up we have lots of new stuff; how about a movie night? How about two literary evenings featuring well known and interesting authors? How about an art show and vernissage featuring some of Ottawa’s hippest young musicians? To find out about all these things, and, of course Valentine’s Day, read on!
Valentine’s Day:
First of all: Yes, We Will Be Open Monday, February 14th for Valentine’s Day! And yes, for those of you more inclined to get in your V day celebrating on the weekend nights prior to that Monday (you know, so can ‘sleep in’ the next day...), we will also be offering our special 3 course menu of traditional aphrodisiac foods for not just Monday, but for Friday and Saturday (February 11th and 12th) as well. Here’s a preview of the Aphrodisiac Menu:
the introduction:
choice of:
oysters on the half shell; lime, chili, mixed greens and yuzu vinaigrette
or
truffled beet and mushroom ravioli; cream sauce, local goat chevre
the seduction:
choice of:
the striptease; red wine marinated 6-ounce o’brien farms striploin, chocolate-lovage ‘magic love butter’, mashed potatoes and seasonal veggies
or
the ménage a trois; lyon’s chicken prepared three ways: barbecued wings and drumlets, a parmesan and herb stuffed thigh roulade and a breast tender risotto
or
the love letter; a filet of local trout steamed en papillotte (in parchment) with rice noodles, sweet peppers, lime, ginger and coconut milk
or
hearts on fire; a whole steamed tender artichoke, chili-tomato hollandaise, olives, roasted peppers, white bean ragout
the petit mort:
chocolate fondue for 2; cake, meringue, cookies, fresh fruit, molten dark chocolate...
Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Where you go next is entirely up to you, but prepared, these traditional aphrodisiac foods may cause unexpected and completely desirable outcomes...
February Art:
The following rundown of this month’s art show and this Sunday’s vernissage was provided by the artist:
Ottawa oil painter A. James Brummel brings his "head to head" show to Kemptville! That's right, we're hitting the road and heads are going to roll. Come and see what all the fuss has been about. And stay for the branch's bountiful buffet and LIVE music!
"head to head" is a collection of portraits depicting Ottawa musicians painted on used drum skins (or heads). The drummers (Edwards, Essoudry, Guerrero, Ouimet and Sheridan) were painted on skins from their own kits. The exhibition was originally shown at the Shanghai Restaurant in Chinatown. With many of the musicians performing, and generally getting intoxicated. One of whom had a heart attack the next day. But it wasn't the art or the alcohol--most likely hockey was to blame. The important thing was that his portrait sold. And that he's doing a show at Irene's in February.
Enter "head to head.2"...
There will be eight (8) bouts featuring 16 O-town heavy weights!
1) DAVE EDWARDS VS MIKE ESSOUDRY
2) KELLYLEE EVANS VS BILL GUERRERO
3) TARA HOLLOWAY VS MEREDITH LUCE (cat fight)
4) MATT KIDD VS MARK ALEXANDER MCINTYRE
5) ASHLEY NEWALL VS DAVE NORRIS (grudge match)
6) GLENN NUOTIO VS MATT OUIMET
7) AMANDA RHEAME VS BRAD SUCKS
8) BRIAN SIMMS VS MICHAEL SHERIDAN (mud wrestling)
http://www3.sympatico.ca/a moamasam/
http://www.facebook.com/pa ges/A-James-Brummel/777389 6423
Author Events:
http://www.bcachievement.com/nonfiction/finalist.php?id=25
Join Dr. John FizGerald, acclaimed British Columbian non-fiction author, for a reading at the branch on Thursday, February 17th at 7:30pm. Half of the proceeds from the evening’s dinner will be donated to the Kemptville District Hospital Foundation.
This event is hosted by the branch and Jamie Laidlaw, a local resident and a friend of Dr. FitzGerald who has this to say about his old friend:
James and I are lifelong friends who went to UCC together and more importantly to each other's birthday parties. Even then he was an astonishing writer with skills that were far beyond the reach of the rest of us. Luckily, he has chosen the difficult and rewarding path of historical reconstruction and personal reconciliation. His immense effort rewards the reader with insight into 20th century Toronto and the evolution of health care as well as his own bold inquiry into the makeup of his own psyche. This makes, "What Disturbs Our Blood" at least two books in one. It is a both a detective story and a personal journey. Each passage and page brings a new hard won insight and the reader's attention never flags. The rewards include the appreciation of a "lost" genius, a deeper knowing of a gifted father and the rescue of his own well being. In total, the redemption of the male line of the FitzGeralds of Drayton, Ontario and Balmoral Avenue, Toronto.
Count among James's fans the distinguished historian Michael Bliss (Sir William Osler), the author and doctor Gabor Mate (The Hungry Ghosts) and recent BC Achievement Foundation winner John Valliant (Golden Spruce, The Tiger) and Noah Richler one of this year's judges, (This Is My Country, What's Yours?).
Please join us for a unique experience as well as in support of a great cause.
--Jamie Laidlaw
And then, on Sunday, February 27, 2011 at 7pm: A Kitchen Table Meeting with award-winning author Thomas Pawlick
Enjoy a kitchen table meeting with award winning author Thomas Pawlick. The event will be a casual and open discussion with Thomas, after an opening introduction by the author to set the stage. Our foodie friends will certainly recognize him as the author of the best selling The End of Food, a must read for folks interested in understanding our food choices...
Thomas will open the discussion at 7 PM - but come and enjoy the branch restaurant's famous Rubber Boots Buffet from any time after 2 PM.
About the Author: Thomas F. Pawlick has more than thirty-five years of experience as a journalist and editor, specializing in science, environmental, and agricultural reporting. He is a three-time winner of the Canadian Science Writers’ Association Award and received a National Magazine Award for his agricultural reporting. Pawlick holds a masters degree in farm journalism and is the author of ten books, including the best-selling The End of Food and War in the Country. He served six years as chief editor of Ceres magazine, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's flagship publication. He currently lives on a 150-acre farm in eastern Ontario.
Movie Night:
Food, Inc. Wednesday, February 16th, 6:45pm
The following news-bite was provided by the inimitable Mr. Douglas Hendry, esq.:
So there you sit, in front of your food...and you are about to take your next bite. But as you read this, you stop, look at the food on your plate and ask yourself some questions. What are you putting in your mouth? Where does this food come from? And what is in it, really?
The food industry is a very powerful one. It controls modern society in ways which most of us never think about. We have long ago given up the ability to feed ourselves, for the most part, and so we rely upon others to feed us but pay very little heed to either how our food is grown, how it is processed or how it gets to our table.
More and more people are beginning to ask these questions and to realize that perhaps we should be paying more attention. If you are one of them, Sustainable North Grenville invites you to a free screening of the movie Food Inc. to be held at the branch restaurant on February 16th at 7pm. This movie takes a look at how food is manufactured and what is good and bad about the process. After watching it, it's likely that you'll never look at your breakfast quite the same way again.
So come on out and savour this movie. Afterwards we'll have a free-range discussion [pun intended] while enjoying some snacks courtesy of our friends at the branch. For more information, please contact the links below:
Information about Food Inc
http://www.foodincmovie.com/
Sustainable North Grenville
http://www.sustainablenorthgrenville.ca/
February Music:
First, a note on our new ‘Listening Room Shows’
After four years of trying and sometimes succeeding (and sometimes, well, not so much...) with our grand project of being both a great venue for music and a great restaurant at the same time, we have finally decided to try something a little bit different. We will continue, of course, to do both things, but after to talking to artists, fans, and interested folks like you in order to figure out the best direction to go, we have decided that maybe it’s time to put a little space between the music and the food. Not a lot, mind you; the branch has always been and will always be a restaurant first and our commitment to local and organic foods will always be our primary mission.
But maybe it’s time to give some of the amazing artists who so regularly join us at the branch just a little more space to breathe. What does this mean? Well, first off, we will be pushing our start times back from between 7 and 8 to 9pm. Why? We’ve all come to the conclusion that dinner is a time for people to talk to each other, not necessarily to focus on the music. We feel that moving back the start time will provide a little break and allow folks to change gears between dinner and the music in order for both events to become a little more meaningful.
Second, we will be changing our policy of paying bands out of a percentage of sales and paying them, instead, with a door charge, also known as a cover. Again, why? This is for the benefit of the artist. Because we have such a small room, which, granted, is one of the things that makes a show here so special, we are also in a position of essentially paying all of our artists the same whether folks came out to see them, or to have dinner, to just have a drink, or whatever. A cover charge is a statement, on behalf of the music consumer, that “I have come to see this artist”; it is a token of respect, a chance to give directly.
Music in a small, acoustically wonderful room with stellar harmonics like ours can be magical, it can transport an audience well beyond what they are expecting from a night’s entertainment, and, for the artist, it can make playing at the branch almost like having an extra, secret band member. Unfortunately, that same room, can also have the unfortunate side effect of making our conversational speaking voices a real distraction, not only for all of the other paying customers, but also, even, for the musician we are all there to support.
Our hope is that by separating the dinner service from the music a bit, and by asking you to directly contribute to the artists, we can all benefit. Not only with better shows and better artists, but with evenings that might even change how you appreciate music for the rest of your life. There will be exceptions, of course, a blues band or a dance outfit doesn’t necessarily require or even want the same sense of decorum as a singer (well, some of them, anyway) sitting behind an acoustic guitar, but my guess is that we’ll know when it’s right, that if we’re all in this together, we’ll see by the looks on our neighbour’s faces. I guess that what we are asking, as of this month, is that when you see a show, like the one coming up this weekend and like the ones coming up throughout this and the next several months; the shows that are advertised with the later start time, with the cover charge, and with the name ‘listening room show’ attached is that we all come prepared to do just that. Listen. The benefits could change music in Kemptville for us all...Let’s just think of it as a next step in providing a venue for the next level of talent...and if that statement tweaks your interest, why don’t you stop by and ask us just exactly what it means...;-)
And now, are you ready to hear about our first ‘listening room show?’
Meredith Luce will be recorded live at the branch this Saturday (February 5th). Meredith Luce, accompanied by Eric Vieweg on lead guitar, will be performing a slew of new songs. The show will be recorded by Dean Watson of the Gallery Studio for use on Meredith's forthcoming album. Meredith has many new songs that she has written over the last couple of years, including a few co-writes with former Mandates band member David Gaudet. She is excited to showcase her new, edgier material on her next album, which she expects to release in the fall. (9pm, $5)
"These recordings will be a jumping off point, creating momentum and inspiration for the new album. I would love to include a few live tracks on the disc, or even release a bonus live CD, depending on what we get from this show! I can't wait to graduate in May and hit the ground running with this new project!"
And on to the rest of the month... I’m going to include Sunday’s (February 6th) vernissage in this section as well, for even though it is technically and art event, it is fairly likely that the Open Stage will be populated with a slightly, let’s just say, ‘above average’ talent pool. Fans of any of the folks featured on the wall for this month’s art show, might want to stop by and be a part of the fun... Coming up next weekend, (Saturday, February 12th) Ben and Heather Mullin will be performing a sweet love-song driven dinner music set to help get those Valentine’s Day juices flowing. And fans of the saccharine, the sweet and possibly the sarcastic are also welcome to join us for a Love Song Themed Open Stage that Sunday (February 13). Mark Beach, our long lost little brother, will be making the long trip down from Montreal that Monday for a special Valentine’s day show. This Creeep knows his way around more than one sexy song; in fact, I’m afraid he just might be the most powerful aphrodisiac offered on that night’s aphrodisiac themed menu—this show will be his first in the area for quite some time—I’d recommend wrangling your significant other and booking this date. I mean, unless you just don’t like things that are really, really good. Just sayin’.
Trevor Alguire will be back in town on Saturday, February 19th for our second listening room show (9pm, $10). It would be tough to pick a more listenable, amiable and likeable guy—tickets for this event are already starting to move, so let us know and soon! That Sunday (Feb 20th) is my Loose and Juicy acoustic jam for this month, so dust off yer singin’ shoes and come give me a holler!
The next Friday, February 25th, is, you guessed it, another special event; the George Harrison Birthday Tribute. George was often called the silent Beatle, but there is nothing silent about the treasure trove of songs this mild mannered, underappreciated genius left behind. When I ask a Beatle fan who their favourite Beatle was, it is invariably Paul or John; when I ask a musician, it is almost always George... If you don’t believe me, you should have seen how quickly folks signed up to be a part of this birthday tribute. We’ve got over a dozen folks from all over the area who want to perform, including Lisa Poushinsky, Christo Graham, Ray Harris, Greg Kelly, Doug Hendry, Katie Nolan, Shawn Yakimovitch, David Boschaart, David Shanahan, Jon-Laurie Beaumont and Dave Scully; the evening will be hosted by Ben Mullin and me, with a rhythm section comprised of Jay Williams on bass and Mark Ettinger on drums. Fans of the Dark Horse, of the Wilbury, of the Beatle should rejoice, here comes the sun! Or something...(p.s.,if anyone knows a sitar player, we'd love to have them along for the ride!!)
Brock Zeman will be performing that Saturday night (February 26th); this will be a fun chance to see this raucous country rocker, Carleton Place’s answer to Steve Earle, blastin out his crazy good originals for our third listening show. I recommend an extra pair of boots for this one, in case you wear out the first! (9pm, $5)
Saturday 5: live recording with Meredith Luce and Eric Vieweg--9pm $5.00 cover *listening room show
Sunday 6: vernissage for "Head to Head" featuring the art of A. James Brummels and special guests??!! 2-8pm
Saturday 12: Ben and Heather Mullin--Love Songs and Valentines...8pm
Sunday 13: Love Song Open Stage--3-6pm
Monday 14: Special Aphrodisiac Valentines Menu with the sexy music of Mark Beach....8pm
Saturday 19: Trevor Alguire; alt-country singer songwriter...special listening show starts at 9 pm; $10.00 cover *listening room show
Sunday 20: Chef Bruce's Loose and Juicy Acoustic Jam~ 3-6pm
Friday 25: George Harrison birthday tribute hosted by Ben Mullin and Chef Bruce --sign up at the restaurant if you'd like to sing a tune or 2--or talk to Ben or Bruce...starts at 8pm, ends when we say "Here Comes the Sun"
Saturday 26: Brock Zeman alt country rocker--Ottawa's most entertaining country rock original--special listening show starts at 9pm: $5.00 cover-----------
Sunday 27: Open Stage--it's open, come on in! *listening room show
January 2011
Howdy Folks!
Well, We’re back...
And this is just a quickie to let you know. Really, it is. Seriously. All we've got is a couple of (small) bits of news and a music schedule and then we’ll step aside, yet again. Don't worry, we'll bring you a full fledged newsletter for February, which, honestly, is coming soon enough...
New Winter Hours:
We'll be adjusting the schedule slightly for the next couple of months so, please, plan accordingly...
LUNCH: TUESDAY-SATURDAY 11:30-2pm (*no change...)
DINNER: THURSDAY-SATURDAY 5-9:30pm (***now closed on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings)
SUNDAY: Rubber Boots Buffet 2-8pm, Open Stage 3-6pm (*no change)
CLOSED MONDAYS. (*no change)
Thanks, Citizen!
In case you missed it, we had a sweet, quick mention in the Ottawa Citizen’s Travel Section last Saturday, we were first choice out of five in a story about things to do in the area that were worth the drive, it was an honour, and a surprise, you can read it here!
January Music:
Come see the Ottawa Valley's answer to John Prine and Bob Dylan, Andy McGaw, at the branch this Saturday (January 15th) trading songs with his old pal, our own Chef Bruce (yeah, that's me...). Some harmonies, some good stories, some protest songs and some decent food are all sure to make an appearance! Paul Roberto and Gilles LeClerc will bring their Dusty, Driftin ways to the branch on Friday the 22nd, folks who have seen their weekly show at Irene's report that this is, in fact, the real deal! (In recent news, some other Drifters may also be making an appearance...) Mango Upstart is back that Saturday (the 22nd) This is a 7 piece (!!) Afro-Cuban-Salsa-Marimba-Calypso rhythm and booty shakin jazz experience...highly recomended for the musically jaded, this is guaranteed to restore your faith in the power of sweet music to help create a good time... I am definitely looking forward to the Unseen Strangers (Friday, Jan. 28th), a name which will be apt on this visit to the branch, as it is thier first--however, if the live performance is anywhere near as good as the sweet pickin and harmonies on their recorded efforts (check them out, this Toronto via the East Coast, young and energetic 'new-style' bluegrass band is definitely worth a listen) that name may not be nearly as apt in the future... Tara Holloway (Jan. 29th) last appeared for an Open Stage on my birthday last year with a few friends from Texas, about three seconds into her first song, everyone shut up and listened, yeah, she's got one of those voices. Don't, don't (OK, I just wanted one more excuse to italicize...) miss this one...
Saturday 15: Andy McGaw and Chef Bruce--protest songs, original folk, country croonin' and stories about life and love~ 8pm
Sunday 16: Chef Bruce's Loose and Juicy Acoustic Jam~ 3-6pm
Friday 21: "Dusty and the Drifter" bluegrass with Paul Roberto and Gilles LeClerc ~7pm
Saturday 22: Mango Upstart! (Samba, Afro-Cuban, Carribbean, Salsa...) ~ 8pm Sunday 23: Open Stage--all are welcome, so, well, come! 3-6pm
Friday 28: The Unseen Strangers; Toronto Bluegrass ~ 8pm-
Saturday 29: Tara Holloway; rocky folk--edgy Ottawa singer-songstress with some blues, some folk, some punk, and some soulful tough girl singin--8pm---
Sunday 30: Open Stage, put on yer singin shoes! 3-6pm
So anyway, that's all! Hope to see you soon and thanks for readin!
--Chef Bruce
Well, We’re back...
And this is just a quickie to let you know. Really, it is. Seriously. All we've got is a couple of (small) bits of news and a music schedule and then we’ll step aside, yet again. Don't worry, we'll bring you a full fledged newsletter for February, which, honestly, is coming soon enough...
New Winter Hours:
We'll be adjusting the schedule slightly for the next couple of months so, please, plan accordingly...
LUNCH: TUESDAY-SATURDAY 11:30-2pm (*no change...)
DINNER: THURSDAY-SATURDAY 5-9:30pm (***now closed on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings)
SUNDAY: Rubber Boots Buffet 2-8pm, Open Stage 3-6pm (*no change)
CLOSED MONDAYS. (*no change)
Thanks, Citizen!
In case you missed it, we had a sweet, quick mention in the Ottawa Citizen’s Travel Section last Saturday, we were first choice out of five in a story about things to do in the area that were worth the drive, it was an honour, and a surprise, you can read it here!
January Music:
Come see the Ottawa Valley's answer to John Prine and Bob Dylan, Andy McGaw, at the branch this Saturday (January 15th) trading songs with his old pal, our own Chef Bruce (yeah, that's me...). Some harmonies, some good stories, some protest songs and some decent food are all sure to make an appearance! Paul Roberto and Gilles LeClerc will bring their Dusty, Driftin ways to the branch on Friday the 22nd, folks who have seen their weekly show at Irene's report that this is, in fact, the real deal! (In recent news, some other Drifters may also be making an appearance...) Mango Upstart is back that Saturday (the 22nd) This is a 7 piece (!!) Afro-Cuban-Salsa-Marimba-Calypso rhythm and booty shakin jazz experience...highly recomended for the musically jaded, this is guaranteed to restore your faith in the power of sweet music to help create a good time... I am definitely looking forward to the Unseen Strangers (Friday, Jan. 28th), a name which will be apt on this visit to the branch, as it is thier first--however, if the live performance is anywhere near as good as the sweet pickin and harmonies on their recorded efforts (check them out, this Toronto via the East Coast, young and energetic 'new-style' bluegrass band is definitely worth a listen) that name may not be nearly as apt in the future... Tara Holloway (Jan. 29th) last appeared for an Open Stage on my birthday last year with a few friends from Texas, about three seconds into her first song, everyone shut up and listened, yeah, she's got one of those voices. Don't, don't (OK, I just wanted one more excuse to italicize...) miss this one...
Saturday 15: Andy McGaw and Chef Bruce--protest songs, original folk, country croonin' and stories about life and love~ 8pm
Sunday 16: Chef Bruce's Loose and Juicy Acoustic Jam~ 3-6pm
Friday 21: "Dusty and the Drifter" bluegrass with Paul Roberto and Gilles LeClerc ~7pm
Saturday 22: Mango Upstart! (Samba, Afro-Cuban, Carribbean, Salsa...) ~ 8pm Sunday 23: Open Stage--all are welcome, so, well, come! 3-6pm
Friday 28: The Unseen Strangers; Toronto Bluegrass ~ 8pm-
Saturday 29: Tara Holloway; rocky folk--edgy Ottawa singer-songstress with some blues, some folk, some punk, and some soulful tough girl singin--8pm---
Sunday 30: Open Stage, put on yer singin shoes! 3-6pm
So anyway, that's all! Hope to see you soon and thanks for readin!
--Chef Bruce
Thursday, December 9, 2010
december newsletter 2010
Well, the buzz is buzzin’. And yes, it’s true, after 4 years with a winning team, we are changing our starting line-up. Brent and Jenn (and Jacob, of course) Kelaher, our good friends and excellent business partners, are stepping away from the branch to pursue other goals. This does not mean the branch is going anywhere. Yes, we will be closed some days around the turning of the year (more on that later, and don’t worry, we won’t be closed on New Year’s Eve—in fact we’re planning an over the top send off for our favourite Kelahers with an awesome multicourse taste-travaganza and the return of perennial musical dynamic duo of John Carroll and Mike O’Brien; nor does it mean we’ll pass up a chance at Kemptville’s favourite party at our super fun New Years Day ‘Hair of the Dog’ Open Stage hosted by John and Terry Brewer...) But it does mean, yes, there will be some changes afoot. Change can be scary, I know, but change can also be exciting; I am pleased to report that this change, although perhaps a tiny bit scary, is in fact almost entirely of the exciting variety. Exciting for us, sure, a shakeup means a chance to try new things, but exciting for you, our people, our family, our friends, as well. It’s exciting because it brings new opportunities, specifically an opportunity for some of you to play a bigger role. We’ve teased a bit about this in the past, and some of you have already stepped forward, but now, we are officially looking for investors, if you are someone who is interested in being a bigger part of the branch team, now is your chance, so come on by any time and talk to Nicole and me about how.
Whew! Big news aside, we’ve still got a restaurant to run here! So, let’s see, how was that November of yours? Ours was awesome—We had musical visits from branch favourites like The Standby Brothers, Lynne Hanson & Ryan Cook; we also had a fantastic party for Gram Parsons’ birthday hosted by Ray Harris that brought a crowd of amazing talent to the branch’s humble stage for a day no one present will soon forget...Pat Moore, Dave Norris and Al Wood also helped fill out the weekend evenings in style with sweet country, indie originals and a dose of the blues.
The branch celebrated four years last month with a ‘table d’hôte’ fixed price menu that went over so well that we’ve decided to make it a permanent feature; any regular business evening (excepting Sundays), you can now enjoy a three course menu of our seasonal specials for just 30 dollars—it’s reasonable, seasonal and delicious...
Now on to the News!
December Hours:
The holiday season, means topsy turvy schedules for everyone and the branch is no different. This month, with private parties, vacations, special events and a pinch of recovery time, will be an odd one for the branch; this, we hope, will clarify things a little bit:
This Saturday, December 11th; the branch is closed to the public to host a private party.
The branch will also be closed from Friday December 24 through Thursday December 30th, then on December 31st, we will re-open at 7 pm for our annual New Year’s Eve celebration and dinner (details below...). We will be open on Saturday, January 1st from 2-8pm for our annual ‘Hair of the Dog’ Open Stage hosted by John and Terry Brewer, and then we will close for the following week, January 2nd through the 10th, for a mix of rest, recuperation, planning and maintenance.
The branch will re-open on Tuesday, January 11th for lunch at 11:30am and will (finally...) resume our normal operating hours! Join us that Saturday, January 15th, for a grand re-opening party with an exciting musical surprise!
New Years Eve:
Well, it comes around every year, and every year I try to top last year’s menu. This year, of course, we will also be bidding adieu to one of our own as it is Brent’s last night ‘on the floor.’ As such, we have all put our heads together to make this our best menu yet. Literally. I have asked, for the first time, each of the folks in the kitchen to design a course of their own and to take ownership of that course for the evening—
This year the menu and service will change in another way from years past; instead of multiple seatings, we will all eat together, like a family. The evening will begin with hors d’oeuvres and cocktails at 7, and then everyone will be seated, together, at 8pm to enjoy several courses as a group, with optional wine pairings in between, all culminating in a champagne toast at midnight. There will be some options, of course, to accommodate our vegetarian and diet restricted friends, but the theme this year will be mostly focused on the idea of shared experience, of coming together and of being a family of friends.
The Menu:
The snacks during the cocktail hour will represent the seasons: A vegetarian asparagus (cut and frozen last spring from Amy’s patch) pâté for spring; tomatoes with pesto, local cheese and honey for summer; pumpkin chips with chili aioli and a sweet corn relish for the fall, and for winter; grilled beef on a stick with caramelized onion and maple taffy and smoked cinnamon butter
Nicole, my wife, my love and my true partner in the kitchen, will present a salad close to her heart, breakfast for dinner: housemade duck & apple sausage, cornbread French toast, and a poached quail egg over warm spinach greens with maple vinaigrette. A vegetarian version will omit the duck in place of smoked tofu.
Wesley is a fine young man who has grown with the branch to become a quick, skilled and creative first cook. For his first year as creative partner, he will be presenting a course of scallops with Asian rice noodles; a vegetarian option of spider roll sushi with crispy vegetable, sweet peppers and avocado.
Heather, my sous chef and an incredibly important behind the scenes member of the branch team will be offering the third course of a lamb chop with porcini and red wine gravy, served with a fillo beggars purse stuffed with roasted root vegetables and topped with truffle oil and fried leeks. A vegetarian version will feature grilled wild mushrooms in place of the lamb.
I will present an intermezzo of champagne and caviar: pink champagne sorbet, buckwheat tuile, crème fraiche & trout roe.
For the entrée, I will present braised beef cheek and lamb tongue roulade, yes, that’s right, tongue in cheek. This playful entrée will be served with a cauliflower and parsnip rosti, a single malt scotch béarnaise and a cranberry marmalade.
Vegetarian diners will enjoy a braised and grilled seitan cutlet with local cheese and ice wine fondue in place of the roulade and béarnaise.
In the last act of the evening, Brent will be presenting the coup de grace, a dessert of poached pear acting on a fillo pastry stage with chocolate and spice. A fine farewell indeed.
A champagne toast at midnight is included, John Carroll and Mike O’Brien will be your musical hosts, $85 per person, $20 optional wine pairing. Please note, this menu, though firm in its outline, will be subject to change based on whim, fancy and availability. I do promise, however, that any changes will only be for the better...
December Art:
Moira Law
Moira has been making photographs many years – thousands in the days of film and darkrooms. In time, discouraged by the delay from shutter to image and the extensive use of chemicals, she turned her attention to other art forms. But the potential unleashed with the advent of the digital age has brought her back. What a joy it is to make digital pictures! Cameras now are capable of so much more than in the past and digital darkrooms have many times the capacity of the old methods.
Moira is mostly self-taught, guided by the occasional course or seminar as well as on-line learning methods, she takes from whatever resources she finds, including her own experiences. Helpful colleagues have encouraged her, provided insights and suggested new techniques to try. Fully aware that “everyone has a camera” she strives to find something original to say with her images.
Moira first started sharing the results of her work on-line, under the name of her Second Life avatar, Em Larsson. Em is currently a better-known artist than her real life counterpart. (See www.emlarsson.com) Virtual success and the enthusiasm of her on-line admirers encouraged her to present her work in the “real” world.
Moira concentrates on natural subjects, especially macro (extreme close-up) images and abstracts. Her official opening at the Branch Restaurant is on Sunday, December 12 from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM and you are all invited. The show runs from runs from December 1 to January 31. Moira hopes you enjoy looking at her images as much as she has enjoyed creating them.
December at Beau’s:
John Carroll & The Epic Proportions: On December 18th, North Grenville’s own Mr. John Carroll is taking his band on the road to the ultimate roadhouse for beer lovers everywhere—ground zero for Ontario Craft Beer, the Beau’s All Natural brewery! This is the last chance to attend one of these events this year, and probably until next Spring—do you really want to spend all winter kicking yourself because you never made it out to one of our legendary branch at Beau’s events? I didn’t think so! Now get in gear! Plan your trip now!!!
Did we mention the Texas-style BBQ by the branch served all night long?
Tickets
$25 - Buses from Ottawa. Includes admission, brewery tour and bus ride to the brewery and back to Ottawa. Bus departs from the Black Tomato (11 George St. in the Byward Market) at 6pm and Vankleek Hill at 11:30pm
$10 - Admission at Door. 1st set starts at 8pm.
To Purchase Tickets...
Email... beausshows@gmail.com
or Call... 613-258-3737
Note: No ATM on Site, Cash Only Event
Location
Beau's All Natural Brewing Co.
10 Terry Fox Drive
Vankleek Hill, ON
Google Maps
December Music:
Afraid the pickin’s are a bit slim this month down here, we’ve already enjoyed John Carroll’s regular monthly ‘First Thursday’ appearance, as well as an amazing preview of Simon Beach’s upcoming solo release. However, with parties booked the next 2 Saturdays and the last two weekends being Christmas and New Years...well, it’s making for a short paragraph here. If I don’t stop rambling, that is... This weekend we will have an abbreviated ‘Loose and Juicy’ Open Stage starting at 4 pm after Moira Laws’ vernissage...We will then all have to look forward to an evening with one of our favourite local musical families, the Grahams, on Friday, December 17th. But all that aside, here’s a fun one: on Sunday the 19th, the branch is hosting its 4th annual Christmas Carol Sing-Along, Open Stage Free Buffet and Sally Anne Canned Food Drive and Fundraiser (how’s that for a mouthful?) Everyone is invited to come grab a free bite off the buffet, drop a non-perishable food item or few, or even a few bills for the cause, and most importantly, sing in public. That’s right, no matter who, what, or why you are, we actually want you to come and sing along! (Also of note, the word on the street is that the Mark, Simon and Laura Beach are joining us this year, and that’s a family of so much musical talent that they could easily make this a day worth attending by themselves...)
Closing out the month and the year we have John Carroll and Mike O’Brien. Chocolate and Peanut Butter. Beer and Pizza. Coffee and Donuts. You see where I’m going here? Sunday, January the 1st: the 4th annual ‘Hair of the Dog’ Open Stage with John and Terry Brewer—what the heck else are you gonna do? Get off that couch, trust me, I’ve been to a few, this one is even worth shoveling for! See you there!
Sat 11: CLOSED for a private function...
Sun 12: Open Stage ~ 4pm
Fri 17: an evening with the Grahams ~ 7pm
Sun 19: Our Christmas Caroling Open Stage Fundraiser ~ 3-6pm
Fri 31: John Carroll & Mike O'Brien play into the New Year!!!
call for details and reservations
Sun 1: ‘Hair of the Dog’ Open Stage, hosted by John and Terry Brewer ~ 2-8pm
Story Time:
Well, I ran out of time to write a story last month and this month has been pretty weird as well. A big change is upon us; Brent, Jenn and Jacob will be missed behind the scenes in a way that many of you can guess, and less of you can really understand. Running a restaurant is a lot of work, and we have all been thankful, at times beyond words, for each others help through some great times, yes, but also through, as anyone who has ever run a business will know, some incredibly stressful times as well. That is not to say that any of us really wish that it wasn’t happening, we are all well aware that it is time for a change. We all still have similar hopes and desires; deep down, we all want this restaurant to succeed, and we also all want for this wonderful community to thrive and to be sustainable and sustaining for us and for our families. But the facts are that this partnership has, in this business at this location, at this time, simply run its course. The Kelahers have some wonderful opportunities facing them and we also have some new ideas about where to take our groovy little spot next. It’s time for us to leave as friends, and as Brent puts it, to enjoy each others company on the other side of the bar. Four years ago, Brent and I had a conversation that became our mantra, especially through that rough first year “All business is a gamble, but we’ve got pocket aces...” I still feel that way, Brent, you’re an ace. Thanks and good luck.
--Chef Bruce
And now, I yield the remaining time left on this year’s Story Time and newsletter to a friend; a man I will, going forward, always continue to appreciate and respect; Brent Kelaher.
‘On the Other Side of the Bar’
After four great years it is time for Jenn, Jacob and myself to take a step away from the restaurant and seek out new adventures and challenges within North Grenville. As I spend my last month at the restaurant, I look back and I am proud of all that we, as a team, have accomplished in this great community. I met Bruce and Nicole and we became great business partners just over four years ago: the branch staff have since become great friends and, I would say, family. We have grown as a family over the years and, although we may not always agree, we always work things out for the better of the restaurant and our family. I like to think we helped in some small way with the local food movement in our community and will continue to introduce local foods and the importance of supporting your local farmers.
I am proud of what I have accomplished in helping to bring more culture and fun to North Grenville. Veg Stock was my baby and continues to be an important part of my life, as was preventing the Dandelion Festival from dying just three years ago. Since my involvement in the Dandelion Festival, and all the great work done by the volunteers, it has blossomed into what I think is North Grenville's premiere event. I am also proud of my part in helping to bring the Kemptville Kinsmen Farmers’ Market to life, and getting the Municipality involved in it. Bringing music and art to the restaurant was not always easy, but it was always worth the effort, and we have had some special musical and artistic moments over the years. Being a part of so many charity events and fundraisers, stopping to chat with folks on the street about what we were up to next - you can never slow down while in the restaurant business, I would always say.
Most of all, I am proud of my friends and family for believing in me and allowing me to pursue my dreams. Without the love and support of Jenn and Jacob from home I would not have been able to accomplish much, nor would I have been able to fully enjoy the accomplishments. Home is my rock and it allowed me to put in the crazy hours that are needed to succeed in this restaurant business. This dream started for me while I was a child falling asleep to the smells of red wine and garlic in the air while Mom and Dad hosted friends and family in the comfort of our home. That was the feeling I was hoping to bring to the branch: the feeling of warmth and comfort to all our guests and staff.
We have met some incredible people over the years, and our circle of friends has grown ten-fold, if not more. North Grenville has an unbelievable depth of kindness and friendship and we are truly blessed to have set our roots down here. I will miss working, singing and dancing with all the staff, as well as my daily chats with the 'regulars', but at the same time I look forward to sitting on the other side of the bar and singing, dancing and chatting with you all.
What is up for us next? Well, Jenn will be starting her new career in real estate, so if you’re looking to buy or sell (wink, wink).... Jacob will continue to pursue his dreams, but now he'll have his Dad around a little more to help with hockey, homework or just hanging out. I have taken on the role of Coordinator of the Dandelion Festival and will be seeking ways to get more involved with the community, so you'll still see me around, up to something as always.
the branch restaurant is an incredible place and it deserves your support. I know it has mine and I hope to see you on the other side of the bar sometime soon.
--Brent Kelaher
the branch restaurant
15 Clothier St East
Kemptville, ON
613-258-3737
Lunch Tue-Sat 11:30am-2pm
Dinner Tue-Sat 5pm, Sun 2-8pm
Live Music on Weekends
Open Stage & Rubber Boots Buffet Sunday Afternoons
Closed Mondays and most holidays
http://www.thebranchrestaurant.ca/
We love your feedback, but don’t often check this address, if you’d like to reply to this letter, please email us at: thebranchrestaurant@gmail.com
If you think this tastes more like spam than organic ham, then just reply with the word 'unsubscribe' in the subject line.
Whew! Big news aside, we’ve still got a restaurant to run here! So, let’s see, how was that November of yours? Ours was awesome—We had musical visits from branch favourites like The Standby Brothers, Lynne Hanson & Ryan Cook; we also had a fantastic party for Gram Parsons’ birthday hosted by Ray Harris that brought a crowd of amazing talent to the branch’s humble stage for a day no one present will soon forget...Pat Moore, Dave Norris and Al Wood also helped fill out the weekend evenings in style with sweet country, indie originals and a dose of the blues.
The branch celebrated four years last month with a ‘table d’hôte’ fixed price menu that went over so well that we’ve decided to make it a permanent feature; any regular business evening (excepting Sundays), you can now enjoy a three course menu of our seasonal specials for just 30 dollars—it’s reasonable, seasonal and delicious...
Now on to the News!
December Hours:
The holiday season, means topsy turvy schedules for everyone and the branch is no different. This month, with private parties, vacations, special events and a pinch of recovery time, will be an odd one for the branch; this, we hope, will clarify things a little bit:
This Saturday, December 11th; the branch is closed to the public to host a private party.
The branch will also be closed from Friday December 24 through Thursday December 30th, then on December 31st, we will re-open at 7 pm for our annual New Year’s Eve celebration and dinner (details below...). We will be open on Saturday, January 1st from 2-8pm for our annual ‘Hair of the Dog’ Open Stage hosted by John and Terry Brewer, and then we will close for the following week, January 2nd through the 10th, for a mix of rest, recuperation, planning and maintenance.
The branch will re-open on Tuesday, January 11th for lunch at 11:30am and will (finally...) resume our normal operating hours! Join us that Saturday, January 15th, for a grand re-opening party with an exciting musical surprise!
New Years Eve:
Well, it comes around every year, and every year I try to top last year’s menu. This year, of course, we will also be bidding adieu to one of our own as it is Brent’s last night ‘on the floor.’ As such, we have all put our heads together to make this our best menu yet. Literally. I have asked, for the first time, each of the folks in the kitchen to design a course of their own and to take ownership of that course for the evening—
This year the menu and service will change in another way from years past; instead of multiple seatings, we will all eat together, like a family. The evening will begin with hors d’oeuvres and cocktails at 7, and then everyone will be seated, together, at 8pm to enjoy several courses as a group, with optional wine pairings in between, all culminating in a champagne toast at midnight. There will be some options, of course, to accommodate our vegetarian and diet restricted friends, but the theme this year will be mostly focused on the idea of shared experience, of coming together and of being a family of friends.
The Menu:
The snacks during the cocktail hour will represent the seasons: A vegetarian asparagus (cut and frozen last spring from Amy’s patch) pâté for spring; tomatoes with pesto, local cheese and honey for summer; pumpkin chips with chili aioli and a sweet corn relish for the fall, and for winter; grilled beef on a stick with caramelized onion and maple taffy and smoked cinnamon butter
Nicole, my wife, my love and my true partner in the kitchen, will present a salad close to her heart, breakfast for dinner: housemade duck & apple sausage, cornbread French toast, and a poached quail egg over warm spinach greens with maple vinaigrette. A vegetarian version will omit the duck in place of smoked tofu.
Wesley is a fine young man who has grown with the branch to become a quick, skilled and creative first cook. For his first year as creative partner, he will be presenting a course of scallops with Asian rice noodles; a vegetarian option of spider roll sushi with crispy vegetable, sweet peppers and avocado.
Heather, my sous chef and an incredibly important behind the scenes member of the branch team will be offering the third course of a lamb chop with porcini and red wine gravy, served with a fillo beggars purse stuffed with roasted root vegetables and topped with truffle oil and fried leeks. A vegetarian version will feature grilled wild mushrooms in place of the lamb.
I will present an intermezzo of champagne and caviar: pink champagne sorbet, buckwheat tuile, crème fraiche & trout roe.
For the entrée, I will present braised beef cheek and lamb tongue roulade, yes, that’s right, tongue in cheek. This playful entrée will be served with a cauliflower and parsnip rosti, a single malt scotch béarnaise and a cranberry marmalade.
Vegetarian diners will enjoy a braised and grilled seitan cutlet with local cheese and ice wine fondue in place of the roulade and béarnaise.
In the last act of the evening, Brent will be presenting the coup de grace, a dessert of poached pear acting on a fillo pastry stage with chocolate and spice. A fine farewell indeed.
A champagne toast at midnight is included, John Carroll and Mike O’Brien will be your musical hosts, $85 per person, $20 optional wine pairing. Please note, this menu, though firm in its outline, will be subject to change based on whim, fancy and availability. I do promise, however, that any changes will only be for the better...
December Art:
Moira Law
Moira has been making photographs many years – thousands in the days of film and darkrooms. In time, discouraged by the delay from shutter to image and the extensive use of chemicals, she turned her attention to other art forms. But the potential unleashed with the advent of the digital age has brought her back. What a joy it is to make digital pictures! Cameras now are capable of so much more than in the past and digital darkrooms have many times the capacity of the old methods.
Moira is mostly self-taught, guided by the occasional course or seminar as well as on-line learning methods, she takes from whatever resources she finds, including her own experiences. Helpful colleagues have encouraged her, provided insights and suggested new techniques to try. Fully aware that “everyone has a camera” she strives to find something original to say with her images.
Moira first started sharing the results of her work on-line, under the name of her Second Life avatar, Em Larsson. Em is currently a better-known artist than her real life counterpart. (See www.emlarsson.com) Virtual success and the enthusiasm of her on-line admirers encouraged her to present her work in the “real” world.
Moira concentrates on natural subjects, especially macro (extreme close-up) images and abstracts. Her official opening at the Branch Restaurant is on Sunday, December 12 from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM and you are all invited. The show runs from runs from December 1 to January 31. Moira hopes you enjoy looking at her images as much as she has enjoyed creating them.
December at Beau’s:
John Carroll & The Epic Proportions: On December 18th, North Grenville’s own Mr. John Carroll is taking his band on the road to the ultimate roadhouse for beer lovers everywhere—ground zero for Ontario Craft Beer, the Beau’s All Natural brewery! This is the last chance to attend one of these events this year, and probably until next Spring—do you really want to spend all winter kicking yourself because you never made it out to one of our legendary branch at Beau’s events? I didn’t think so! Now get in gear! Plan your trip now!!!
Did we mention the Texas-style BBQ by the branch served all night long?
Tickets
$25 - Buses from Ottawa. Includes admission, brewery tour and bus ride to the brewery and back to Ottawa. Bus departs from the Black Tomato (11 George St. in the Byward Market) at 6pm and Vankleek Hill at 11:30pm
$10 - Admission at Door. 1st set starts at 8pm.
To Purchase Tickets...
Email... beausshows@gmail.com
or Call... 613-258-3737
Note: No ATM on Site, Cash Only Event
Location
Beau's All Natural Brewing Co.
10 Terry Fox Drive
Vankleek Hill, ON
Google Maps
December Music:
Afraid the pickin’s are a bit slim this month down here, we’ve already enjoyed John Carroll’s regular monthly ‘First Thursday’ appearance, as well as an amazing preview of Simon Beach’s upcoming solo release. However, with parties booked the next 2 Saturdays and the last two weekends being Christmas and New Years...well, it’s making for a short paragraph here. If I don’t stop rambling, that is... This weekend we will have an abbreviated ‘Loose and Juicy’ Open Stage starting at 4 pm after Moira Laws’ vernissage...We will then all have to look forward to an evening with one of our favourite local musical families, the Grahams, on Friday, December 17th. But all that aside, here’s a fun one: on Sunday the 19th, the branch is hosting its 4th annual Christmas Carol Sing-Along, Open Stage Free Buffet and Sally Anne Canned Food Drive and Fundraiser (how’s that for a mouthful?) Everyone is invited to come grab a free bite off the buffet, drop a non-perishable food item or few, or even a few bills for the cause, and most importantly, sing in public. That’s right, no matter who, what, or why you are, we actually want you to come and sing along! (Also of note, the word on the street is that the Mark, Simon and Laura Beach are joining us this year, and that’s a family of so much musical talent that they could easily make this a day worth attending by themselves...)
Closing out the month and the year we have John Carroll and Mike O’Brien. Chocolate and Peanut Butter. Beer and Pizza. Coffee and Donuts. You see where I’m going here? Sunday, January the 1st: the 4th annual ‘Hair of the Dog’ Open Stage with John and Terry Brewer—what the heck else are you gonna do? Get off that couch, trust me, I’ve been to a few, this one is even worth shoveling for! See you there!
Sat 11: CLOSED for a private function...
Sun 12: Open Stage ~ 4pm
Fri 17: an evening with the Grahams ~ 7pm
Sun 19: Our Christmas Caroling Open Stage Fundraiser ~ 3-6pm
Fri 31: John Carroll & Mike O'Brien play into the New Year!!!
call for details and reservations
Sun 1: ‘Hair of the Dog’ Open Stage, hosted by John and Terry Brewer ~ 2-8pm
Story Time:
Well, I ran out of time to write a story last month and this month has been pretty weird as well. A big change is upon us; Brent, Jenn and Jacob will be missed behind the scenes in a way that many of you can guess, and less of you can really understand. Running a restaurant is a lot of work, and we have all been thankful, at times beyond words, for each others help through some great times, yes, but also through, as anyone who has ever run a business will know, some incredibly stressful times as well. That is not to say that any of us really wish that it wasn’t happening, we are all well aware that it is time for a change. We all still have similar hopes and desires; deep down, we all want this restaurant to succeed, and we also all want for this wonderful community to thrive and to be sustainable and sustaining for us and for our families. But the facts are that this partnership has, in this business at this location, at this time, simply run its course. The Kelahers have some wonderful opportunities facing them and we also have some new ideas about where to take our groovy little spot next. It’s time for us to leave as friends, and as Brent puts it, to enjoy each others company on the other side of the bar. Four years ago, Brent and I had a conversation that became our mantra, especially through that rough first year “All business is a gamble, but we’ve got pocket aces...” I still feel that way, Brent, you’re an ace. Thanks and good luck.
--Chef Bruce
And now, I yield the remaining time left on this year’s Story Time and newsletter to a friend; a man I will, going forward, always continue to appreciate and respect; Brent Kelaher.
‘On the Other Side of the Bar’
After four great years it is time for Jenn, Jacob and myself to take a step away from the restaurant and seek out new adventures and challenges within North Grenville. As I spend my last month at the restaurant, I look back and I am proud of all that we, as a team, have accomplished in this great community. I met Bruce and Nicole and we became great business partners just over four years ago: the branch staff have since become great friends and, I would say, family. We have grown as a family over the years and, although we may not always agree, we always work things out for the better of the restaurant and our family. I like to think we helped in some small way with the local food movement in our community and will continue to introduce local foods and the importance of supporting your local farmers.
I am proud of what I have accomplished in helping to bring more culture and fun to North Grenville. Veg Stock was my baby and continues to be an important part of my life, as was preventing the Dandelion Festival from dying just three years ago. Since my involvement in the Dandelion Festival, and all the great work done by the volunteers, it has blossomed into what I think is North Grenville's premiere event. I am also proud of my part in helping to bring the Kemptville Kinsmen Farmers’ Market to life, and getting the Municipality involved in it. Bringing music and art to the restaurant was not always easy, but it was always worth the effort, and we have had some special musical and artistic moments over the years. Being a part of so many charity events and fundraisers, stopping to chat with folks on the street about what we were up to next - you can never slow down while in the restaurant business, I would always say.
Most of all, I am proud of my friends and family for believing in me and allowing me to pursue my dreams. Without the love and support of Jenn and Jacob from home I would not have been able to accomplish much, nor would I have been able to fully enjoy the accomplishments. Home is my rock and it allowed me to put in the crazy hours that are needed to succeed in this restaurant business. This dream started for me while I was a child falling asleep to the smells of red wine and garlic in the air while Mom and Dad hosted friends and family in the comfort of our home. That was the feeling I was hoping to bring to the branch: the feeling of warmth and comfort to all our guests and staff.
We have met some incredible people over the years, and our circle of friends has grown ten-fold, if not more. North Grenville has an unbelievable depth of kindness and friendship and we are truly blessed to have set our roots down here. I will miss working, singing and dancing with all the staff, as well as my daily chats with the 'regulars', but at the same time I look forward to sitting on the other side of the bar and singing, dancing and chatting with you all.
What is up for us next? Well, Jenn will be starting her new career in real estate, so if you’re looking to buy or sell (wink, wink).... Jacob will continue to pursue his dreams, but now he'll have his Dad around a little more to help with hockey, homework or just hanging out. I have taken on the role of Coordinator of the Dandelion Festival and will be seeking ways to get more involved with the community, so you'll still see me around, up to something as always.
the branch restaurant is an incredible place and it deserves your support. I know it has mine and I hope to see you on the other side of the bar sometime soon.
--Brent Kelaher
the branch restaurant
15 Clothier St East
Kemptville, ON
613-258-3737
Lunch Tue-Sat 11:30am-2pm
Dinner Tue-Sat 5pm, Sun 2-8pm
Live Music on Weekends
Open Stage & Rubber Boots Buffet Sunday Afternoons
Closed Mondays and most holidays
http://www.thebranchrestaurant.ca/
We love your feedback, but don’t often check this address, if you’d like to reply to this letter, please email us at: thebranchrestaurant@gmail.com
If you think this tastes more like spam than organic ham, then just reply with the word 'unsubscribe' in the subject line.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Chilihead
It’s hard to explain. If you love chilies the way I do, there is nothing to explain, if you don’t, well, like I said, it’s hard to explain...I guess that, for me, there is familiarity, after all, my mother pulled no punches with her chili con carne (it was made with cayenne pepper-40,000 Scoville Heat Units; the measurement for how hot a pepper is, determined by how many times a pepper is diluted in water before losing its heat..., her chili also included jalapeno-6,000 SHU, and ancho chili powder-1,000 SHU...); every Mexican restaurant we ate at in my childhood (and there were many) served chips and salsa in bottomless baskets and bowls before the meal and the salsa (jalapeno) was never made any more mild for the children, nor were the enchiladas, the chilies rellenos, the huevos rancheros, or the burritos (Tex-Mex restaurants use a lot of jalapeno, poblano-1,000 SHU, serrano-20,000 SHU, pasilla-1,000 SHU...) My brother and I discovered a Thai place in our late teens that would deliver a powerful blow if you requested it (Thai finger peppers-90,000 SHU, in sufficient quantities to humble the toughest jalapeno nibbler)—The local Chinese restaurant had a hot pepper in the Kung Pao chicken that we were advised to remove before eating (Cumari-40,000 SHU) but hey, what fun is that? The Chicken Oil Company served the ‘Death Burger” (jalapenos, again, and Tabasco sauce-6,000 SHU), Loretta, our Cajun friend, made a powerful gumbo that would burn like a tire pile (she used cayenne, black and white pepper, fresh serranos and jalapenos and yes, more cayenne)...Breakfast, lunch and dinner, where I grew up, there was always a place for chilies.
But why? When my wife sees me sweating and tearing up, nose running, unable to speak, she is dumbfounded; in fact, most people who don’t share my love of the glorious pain of pepper eating seem to share this curious amazement. But the ones who do...well, lets just say that we understand. But how can I explain it? A scientist would calmly point out that when the capsaicin interacts with the taste buds, the nerves send a signal to the brain that the mouth is being burned, the brain reacts by turning on some defense mechanisms; it increases the heart rate, speeds up the blood flow, increase perspiration, and releases endorphins. Endorphins, you may know, are the gooood stuff...Endorphins are the drugs your body keeps around to make you feel good enough to keep functioning after an injury, which was probably a pretty important survival tool for our jungle dwelling predator-prone ancestors...for the modern version of us, for chili-heads, (...and skydivers, and roller coaster riders...) endorphins are also an awesome cheap (legal, easy, non-toxic...) buzz. That’s right, we’re sitting at the table with you, munching on our peppers and getting high.
My first encounter with real extreme heat was that Thai place I mentioned earlier. I grew up in Bryan/College Station, Texas, a college town and home of Texas A&M University, a large and well regarded institution that drew (and draws) a diverse international student body with its excellent engineering, agricultural, as well as many other programs. This diversity was, although not always exactly overt in our community, a small and interesting presence that brought with it some unusual perks. One of the greatest of these was Thai Taste, a hole in the wall storefront restaurant peopled by a family of Thais who had come to help support the education of a family member (or maybe members? I can’t recall...). It was hardly a conventional restaurant: décor was somewhere between sparse and non-exsistent, the 3 or 4 tables seemed to be inherited from a real estate office boardroom or a garage sale down the street, the menu was short and often patchy, depending on who was working, or the time of day, the time of year—They often even closed for a couple of months at a time to visit Thailand and, apparently, to bring back piles of dried and specialty ingredients not otherwise available in Texas. It was not a cookie cutter Thai restaurant like so many I have visited in the years since with the same tired versions of Pad Thai, Coconut Curry and Tom Yum soup, although it offered some of these things, it offered them in a vacuum, without the influence of the standard ‘Thai Restaurant Model’ that seems to define the mildly flavoured, ‘Westernized’ and homogenized Thai restaurants that I have encountered so frequently in the cities of my travels in the years since. Thai Taste, for lack of a better description, seemed more like home cooking. There was a grandmother in the kitchen, a father, a mother, possibly a sister, perhaps an aunt or an uncle or something, teenagers who wanted to be somewhere else, young children who delighted in running the food, clearing the plates and refilling the water glasses. The food was fresh and rough, large chunks of ginger and lemongrass were left in the soup for the diner to remove, bones and gristle were unapologetically not cleaned from fish or chicken, and most importantly, spice was not held back in some vague attempt at appealing to some mythical, as yet undefined to me concept of ‘the Western Palate’. Almost everything was spicy at Thai Taste, some things more than others, but the reason two teenagers would return again and again to this haven of hot, was the fact that the food could be prepared as hot as you liked, all the way up to the apex of impossibility, that’s right, five stars. My brother and I returned a number of times ordered our food at this magical heat level, asked for a pitcher of ice-water, smiled at each other and plunged in. The pain was instant and furious, but the pleasure...well, here I am 20-plus years later still basking in its glow, so you can be the judge.
When I moved to Austin, I discovered my next marker on the road to chile nirvana, it was in the form of a bottled sauce at a barbecue joint called Ruby’s. Just a bottle on the table next to the Tabasco, by that point in my chile-chomping career, I could drink Tabasco out of the bottle, and I often would, publicly, usually to prove a point, or, honestly, just to show off...This new sauce looked good, a Mexican label, a bright green colour, I was having the Jambalaya, and poured about a half cup of this new treat all over it, against the advice of my dining companion who had met this fabled pepper on the field of battle before and knew exactly what I was up against. That formidable foe was my first encounter with a family of peppers known to scientists as capsicum chinense, the family that includes all of the hottest peppers in the world. The sauce was bottled habanero hot sauce (about 100,000 SHU), and that meal was the first of many with a new and lifelong friend--I almost finished it too! Of course, over time, my tolerance has grown, and now, if I wanted to, I could probably drink that sauce out of the bottle, I wouldn’t bother, of course, but, just sayin...
So yes, chilies are hot. At some point in the 1990’s Dave’s Insanity Sauce (118,000 SHU) came along and introduced ‘capsaicin extract’ as an ingredient that pushed the boundaries of heat into the realm of weaponry; enjoying habanero sauce eventually lead to sampling raw habaneros (up to 350,000 SHU). Dave’s Insanity, upped the intensity in subsequent sauces and opened the floodgates to a host of new competitors using even more and more extract, a process that changed the whole game, but, of course, I tried each new sauce as it came around, and even though through all that heat my tolerance steadily grew, I was also humbled again and again, once, in California, by a bottle of some poison called ‘Da Bomb’, the only bottle of hot sauce which I could not finish, and once, even, by a plate of a half-dozen chicken wings at a roadside stop in Erie, New York, which required a signed release before it could be served. I ate four before tapping out. There was, until recently, always still one more challenge, the true, according to many, Holy Grail of Heat, India’s mythical Bhut (or Naga) Jolokia, the fabled ‘Ghost Pepper’ (1 million-plus(!) SHU) which I actually finally sampled here in Canada last month. It was, though astoundingly hot, surprisingly easy for me, easier than I expected, (too much extract over the years, I suppose) but I also wonder if my sample was anywhere close to as hot as they come (or if, as one observer noted, perhaps I am just the Hulk Hogan of Hot, thanks Kathy...) But either way, it leads one to wonder, is that really all there is? Will I keep trying, keep eating more and more, hotter and hotter? Will I eventually have to spray police grade pepper spray (5 million SHU) down my throat, or score some straight capsaicin extract (16 million SHU) for a weekend with the boys? Well, the short answer is...no.
My favourite pepper in the world is a chile grown and dried by Tierra Vegetables in Healdsburg, California, the variety, ‘Chilhuacle Negro.’ It is native to the Mexican regions of Oaxaca and Chiapas, and the variety is astoundingly tasty with an aroma that can only be compared to the complexity of a fine wine or a perfect cigar, and although the variety of chile is amazing, I’ve had it from other farmers, and the fact is, there is something about the soil, the care, the drying method or something else that Lee and Wayne James (the brother and sister farming team who are responsible for the chili-head Mecca that is Tierra Vegetables) do that turns this mildly spiced, aromatically overachieving chile into a piece of culinary art that, in my mind, rivals the white truffle, the saffron thread, a glass of Chateau D’Yqem, or even a perfect Malpeque oyster for its ability to produce transcendent aroma and flavour. Chihuacle Negro clocks in nowhere near 16 million Scovilles, in fact it only creeps across the Scoville finish line with a relative heat somewhere between 500-1,000 SHU. A close second, for me, in the world of favourite chilies, or even just foods in general, is the texture and warmth of a heavy walled, roasted and peeled Poblano pepper, which, stuffed with good cheese or with a sweet and tangy pork picadillo, I enjoy more than almost any other meal. That’s also only about 1,000 SHU. A freshly fire roasted Hatch chile from New Mexico at peak season is a treat that everyone should enjoy at least once in their lives and several times if possible, easy enough, again, at a measly 1000-2,500 SHU. Give me a few rings of a Hungarian wax pepper fried in olive oil with a pinch of sea salt, or a plate of flash seared pimientos di Padron, both of which are often quite mild (but which may surprise!) with Scoville Heat Units ranging from near zero to the low 1,000s. One of my favourite all time vegetarian meals includes the flesh of sweet big, meaty red bell peppers (0, that’s right, 0 SHU) roasted, peeled and layered with cream cheese, caramelized red onions and big slices of grilled portabello mushroom. Heat or no heat, I am content to dine on this equal parts notorious and nonthreatening nightshade forever. Dried, smoked, ground to any of a dozen different powders, flakes or coarse meals, reconstituted in warm water, pickled, preserved, jellied, served on popcorn, in chutney, in dessert, on breakfast or on steak, the fact is that the capsicum family, when it comes to cooking, is my family; it is as comfortable as my favourite slippers and as entertaining as an evening with an old friend.
India has spices, coffee, mangoes, tea...Thailand has fish sauce, lime leaves and galangal; Italy has white truffles and saffron; France has black truffles, stinky cheese and botrytis wines, Japan has the Ume plum and is surrounded by literal oceans of briny treasures. And in today’s world, all of us can have all of these things, all of the time. Asparagus in winter, chestnuts in the spring...Cheap oil and a fleet of planes have brought the treasures of the world into each and every one of our gourmet food stores and, for a price, we can enjoy anything that we like. For Now. But what if, or perhaps even, ‘when if’ the world shifts, when, for whatever reason, these treats from other lands are no longer around to fill our shelves or when, and even now, the price is so high that we need something else, something that is our own, easy to find and easy to grow and easy to use and store and share to delight our senses and to spur our imagination? What then? Fortunately for us, this New World, the Americas, our world, has its own trunk full of culinary treasure; our chilies, our peppers, these many capsicums which were being consumed wild in the jungles of Bolivia as long ago as 7500 BC before being cultivated in Ecuador some 6,000 years ago. Over time, these puny pods of painful pleasure travelled throughout South, Central and North America, before, finally over the recent and relatively short span of just the last 500 years or so, they fanned out in the galleys, holds, and pockets of European and other adventurers to conquer the palates and racing hearts of humans on every corner of the globe. Over time they have evolved a variety of styles, flavours, textures and aromas that span the palate as surely as they have spanned the globe. For me, chilies have followed me from Texas to California to Ontario, a magic ingredient, a family of ingredients that, in their versatility, array of flavours, ability to tease, tantalize, attack and yes, even occasionally, to get me a little bit high, has always distinguished my cuisine, opened up my taste buds to new possibilities and filled my belly with everything from astounding sweetness to astounding heat; these secret ingredients, these talismans, these tricks of the trade have become the paints whose broad rainbow of flavours, aromas, and textures are the colours that have helped me to fill out, with whatever artistry I can muster, the canvasses of plate on which I daily paint.
It’s hard to explain. If you don’t understand by now, it’s entirely possible that you never will. But let’s put it this way, sometimes it gets pretty cold up here in Canada, too cold to grow allspice, or nutmeg or mangoes or tea. And to me, it seems pretty obvious, there’s only one thing to do when it gets too cold, yeah, you know...Turn up the heat!
-Chef Bruce
But why? When my wife sees me sweating and tearing up, nose running, unable to speak, she is dumbfounded; in fact, most people who don’t share my love of the glorious pain of pepper eating seem to share this curious amazement. But the ones who do...well, lets just say that we understand. But how can I explain it? A scientist would calmly point out that when the capsaicin interacts with the taste buds, the nerves send a signal to the brain that the mouth is being burned, the brain reacts by turning on some defense mechanisms; it increases the heart rate, speeds up the blood flow, increase perspiration, and releases endorphins. Endorphins, you may know, are the gooood stuff...Endorphins are the drugs your body keeps around to make you feel good enough to keep functioning after an injury, which was probably a pretty important survival tool for our jungle dwelling predator-prone ancestors...for the modern version of us, for chili-heads, (...and skydivers, and roller coaster riders...) endorphins are also an awesome cheap (legal, easy, non-toxic...) buzz. That’s right, we’re sitting at the table with you, munching on our peppers and getting high.
My first encounter with real extreme heat was that Thai place I mentioned earlier. I grew up in Bryan/College Station, Texas, a college town and home of Texas A&M University, a large and well regarded institution that drew (and draws) a diverse international student body with its excellent engineering, agricultural, as well as many other programs. This diversity was, although not always exactly overt in our community, a small and interesting presence that brought with it some unusual perks. One of the greatest of these was Thai Taste, a hole in the wall storefront restaurant peopled by a family of Thais who had come to help support the education of a family member (or maybe members? I can’t recall...). It was hardly a conventional restaurant: décor was somewhere between sparse and non-exsistent, the 3 or 4 tables seemed to be inherited from a real estate office boardroom or a garage sale down the street, the menu was short and often patchy, depending on who was working, or the time of day, the time of year—They often even closed for a couple of months at a time to visit Thailand and, apparently, to bring back piles of dried and specialty ingredients not otherwise available in Texas. It was not a cookie cutter Thai restaurant like so many I have visited in the years since with the same tired versions of Pad Thai, Coconut Curry and Tom Yum soup, although it offered some of these things, it offered them in a vacuum, without the influence of the standard ‘Thai Restaurant Model’ that seems to define the mildly flavoured, ‘Westernized’ and homogenized Thai restaurants that I have encountered so frequently in the cities of my travels in the years since. Thai Taste, for lack of a better description, seemed more like home cooking. There was a grandmother in the kitchen, a father, a mother, possibly a sister, perhaps an aunt or an uncle or something, teenagers who wanted to be somewhere else, young children who delighted in running the food, clearing the plates and refilling the water glasses. The food was fresh and rough, large chunks of ginger and lemongrass were left in the soup for the diner to remove, bones and gristle were unapologetically not cleaned from fish or chicken, and most importantly, spice was not held back in some vague attempt at appealing to some mythical, as yet undefined to me concept of ‘the Western Palate’. Almost everything was spicy at Thai Taste, some things more than others, but the reason two teenagers would return again and again to this haven of hot, was the fact that the food could be prepared as hot as you liked, all the way up to the apex of impossibility, that’s right, five stars. My brother and I returned a number of times ordered our food at this magical heat level, asked for a pitcher of ice-water, smiled at each other and plunged in. The pain was instant and furious, but the pleasure...well, here I am 20-plus years later still basking in its glow, so you can be the judge.
When I moved to Austin, I discovered my next marker on the road to chile nirvana, it was in the form of a bottled sauce at a barbecue joint called Ruby’s. Just a bottle on the table next to the Tabasco, by that point in my chile-chomping career, I could drink Tabasco out of the bottle, and I often would, publicly, usually to prove a point, or, honestly, just to show off...This new sauce looked good, a Mexican label, a bright green colour, I was having the Jambalaya, and poured about a half cup of this new treat all over it, against the advice of my dining companion who had met this fabled pepper on the field of battle before and knew exactly what I was up against. That formidable foe was my first encounter with a family of peppers known to scientists as capsicum chinense, the family that includes all of the hottest peppers in the world. The sauce was bottled habanero hot sauce (about 100,000 SHU), and that meal was the first of many with a new and lifelong friend--I almost finished it too! Of course, over time, my tolerance has grown, and now, if I wanted to, I could probably drink that sauce out of the bottle, I wouldn’t bother, of course, but, just sayin...
So yes, chilies are hot. At some point in the 1990’s Dave’s Insanity Sauce (118,000 SHU) came along and introduced ‘capsaicin extract’ as an ingredient that pushed the boundaries of heat into the realm of weaponry; enjoying habanero sauce eventually lead to sampling raw habaneros (up to 350,000 SHU). Dave’s Insanity, upped the intensity in subsequent sauces and opened the floodgates to a host of new competitors using even more and more extract, a process that changed the whole game, but, of course, I tried each new sauce as it came around, and even though through all that heat my tolerance steadily grew, I was also humbled again and again, once, in California, by a bottle of some poison called ‘Da Bomb’, the only bottle of hot sauce which I could not finish, and once, even, by a plate of a half-dozen chicken wings at a roadside stop in Erie, New York, which required a signed release before it could be served. I ate four before tapping out. There was, until recently, always still one more challenge, the true, according to many, Holy Grail of Heat, India’s mythical Bhut (or Naga) Jolokia, the fabled ‘Ghost Pepper’ (1 million-plus(!) SHU) which I actually finally sampled here in Canada last month. It was, though astoundingly hot, surprisingly easy for me, easier than I expected, (too much extract over the years, I suppose) but I also wonder if my sample was anywhere close to as hot as they come (or if, as one observer noted, perhaps I am just the Hulk Hogan of Hot, thanks Kathy...) But either way, it leads one to wonder, is that really all there is? Will I keep trying, keep eating more and more, hotter and hotter? Will I eventually have to spray police grade pepper spray (5 million SHU) down my throat, or score some straight capsaicin extract (16 million SHU) for a weekend with the boys? Well, the short answer is...no.
My favourite pepper in the world is a chile grown and dried by Tierra Vegetables in Healdsburg, California, the variety, ‘Chilhuacle Negro.’ It is native to the Mexican regions of Oaxaca and Chiapas, and the variety is astoundingly tasty with an aroma that can only be compared to the complexity of a fine wine or a perfect cigar, and although the variety of chile is amazing, I’ve had it from other farmers, and the fact is, there is something about the soil, the care, the drying method or something else that Lee and Wayne James (the brother and sister farming team who are responsible for the chili-head Mecca that is Tierra Vegetables) do that turns this mildly spiced, aromatically overachieving chile into a piece of culinary art that, in my mind, rivals the white truffle, the saffron thread, a glass of Chateau D’Yqem, or even a perfect Malpeque oyster for its ability to produce transcendent aroma and flavour. Chihuacle Negro clocks in nowhere near 16 million Scovilles, in fact it only creeps across the Scoville finish line with a relative heat somewhere between 500-1,000 SHU. A close second, for me, in the world of favourite chilies, or even just foods in general, is the texture and warmth of a heavy walled, roasted and peeled Poblano pepper, which, stuffed with good cheese or with a sweet and tangy pork picadillo, I enjoy more than almost any other meal. That’s also only about 1,000 SHU. A freshly fire roasted Hatch chile from New Mexico at peak season is a treat that everyone should enjoy at least once in their lives and several times if possible, easy enough, again, at a measly 1000-2,500 SHU. Give me a few rings of a Hungarian wax pepper fried in olive oil with a pinch of sea salt, or a plate of flash seared pimientos di Padron, both of which are often quite mild (but which may surprise!) with Scoville Heat Units ranging from near zero to the low 1,000s. One of my favourite all time vegetarian meals includes the flesh of sweet big, meaty red bell peppers (0, that’s right, 0 SHU) roasted, peeled and layered with cream cheese, caramelized red onions and big slices of grilled portabello mushroom. Heat or no heat, I am content to dine on this equal parts notorious and nonthreatening nightshade forever. Dried, smoked, ground to any of a dozen different powders, flakes or coarse meals, reconstituted in warm water, pickled, preserved, jellied, served on popcorn, in chutney, in dessert, on breakfast or on steak, the fact is that the capsicum family, when it comes to cooking, is my family; it is as comfortable as my favourite slippers and as entertaining as an evening with an old friend.
India has spices, coffee, mangoes, tea...Thailand has fish sauce, lime leaves and galangal; Italy has white truffles and saffron; France has black truffles, stinky cheese and botrytis wines, Japan has the Ume plum and is surrounded by literal oceans of briny treasures. And in today’s world, all of us can have all of these things, all of the time. Asparagus in winter, chestnuts in the spring...Cheap oil and a fleet of planes have brought the treasures of the world into each and every one of our gourmet food stores and, for a price, we can enjoy anything that we like. For Now. But what if, or perhaps even, ‘when if’ the world shifts, when, for whatever reason, these treats from other lands are no longer around to fill our shelves or when, and even now, the price is so high that we need something else, something that is our own, easy to find and easy to grow and easy to use and store and share to delight our senses and to spur our imagination? What then? Fortunately for us, this New World, the Americas, our world, has its own trunk full of culinary treasure; our chilies, our peppers, these many capsicums which were being consumed wild in the jungles of Bolivia as long ago as 7500 BC before being cultivated in Ecuador some 6,000 years ago. Over time, these puny pods of painful pleasure travelled throughout South, Central and North America, before, finally over the recent and relatively short span of just the last 500 years or so, they fanned out in the galleys, holds, and pockets of European and other adventurers to conquer the palates and racing hearts of humans on every corner of the globe. Over time they have evolved a variety of styles, flavours, textures and aromas that span the palate as surely as they have spanned the globe. For me, chilies have followed me from Texas to California to Ontario, a magic ingredient, a family of ingredients that, in their versatility, array of flavours, ability to tease, tantalize, attack and yes, even occasionally, to get me a little bit high, has always distinguished my cuisine, opened up my taste buds to new possibilities and filled my belly with everything from astounding sweetness to astounding heat; these secret ingredients, these talismans, these tricks of the trade have become the paints whose broad rainbow of flavours, aromas, and textures are the colours that have helped me to fill out, with whatever artistry I can muster, the canvasses of plate on which I daily paint.
It’s hard to explain. If you don’t understand by now, it’s entirely possible that you never will. But let’s put it this way, sometimes it gets pretty cold up here in Canada, too cold to grow allspice, or nutmeg or mangoes or tea. And to me, it seems pretty obvious, there’s only one thing to do when it gets too cold, yeah, you know...Turn up the heat!
-Chef Bruce
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
The Soup Recipe You Requested...
Food, but more wet.
Mom’s soup was simple. If it was in the fridge, it was fair game: maybe some cans of stuff, maybe some stuff out of the freezer, cover the whole thing with water, adjust the spices, and it was perfect, every time. Leftover chicken or turkey? Boil it for a bit and take out the bones, well, at least most of them. Bean soup? ‘Add some of that salt pork from the freezer.’ ‘How much?’ ‘Oh, you know, some.’
You start with an onion.
I first made ‘proper soups’ at Gizmo’s, a bar and grill in College Station, Texas. I worked there just after High School for about 7 or 8 months. It was owned and run by a couple of sisters who got tired of cocktailing at other bars and decided to start their own. They were Yankees, as we called them, Northerners misplaced in our Southern Town, and they were also city girls with sensibilities that set them apart from the other folks in Northgate, College Station’s bar district. Case in point, they played and allowed only Jazz music on the stereo (the other bars on the strip played only two kinds of music, yep, that’s right: country and western). They decorated with trellises and fake flowers, unlike their competition, there was not one single oil sign, hunting trophy (or, for that matter, any other creative taxidermy experiments) or even a wooden Indian to be found. It was not exactly fancy; it was, after all, a bar, and there was no shortage of neon lights, ashtrays, paper napkins or casual drunkenness. But it aspired to be a bit more. We had no fryer, no pizza oven and no chargrill; we served sandwiches, from a broiler, bread and dips, even steamed vegetables (!) with cheese sauce, and, of course, we served soup.
Laurie and Marsha were in dire need of stepping away from the bar (at least 12 steps away, one would hope) when I met them, and ran this dive-y little jazz bar as one would expect from a couple of waning moons; it was graceful and sloppy, fun and dangerous, exciting and scary. In the evenings, as a 19 year old and the ‘kid’ in the kitchen, I was a mascot of sorts—brought out and shown off, fed drinks and encouraged to entertain. In the mornings, however, it was all business. Laurie, thanks to a long and steady diet of white wine and menthol cigarettes, was creatively past her peak, but had, while ‘up North’ learned to make soups the old fashioned way. Her recipes were explicit, precise, and ‘from scratch.’ We made broth and chopped vegetables; we layered aromatics and sweat them; we made roux and used wine judiciously (at least for cooking...). We added the broth (or the stock) to the sweated vegetables and/or the translucent onions, brought it to a simmer and then added the roots, followed, in 20 minutes or so, by the softer vegetables, and then, eventually, the greens or the cabbage—with the herbs coming last, just before service. Grains were added according to their cooking times, pasta was added to the pot before service, never to the whole batch. Meat was browned just before adding the aromatics, set aside and later returned to the simmering broth. Salt and pepper were added in bits throughout and adjusted at the end to taste... Once, while waiting for Laurie to teach me how to make a roux to finish a gumbo, she spotted an older biker at the bar who was immediately hauled off of his stool and coerced into the kitchen; ‘Chopper’ was an old Cajun from the Bayou and, while stirring the flour into the oil with a long wooden spoon, he carefully explained to me that a proper roux, when finished, carried the same hue as the skin of a mulatto woman. Why, specifically a woman, I never quite understood, but the image stuck, and I think of it every time I make a roux today.
I came to work one day after a break and found the building empty. My last paycheck never came. At the time, I was, understandably, a little peeved, but in hindsight, those lessons in soup and the image of Chopper the Giant Cajun Biker stirring a proper roux in that tiny kitchen more than covered for the lost wages.
You add the broth.
I wasn’t very poor growing up, but I wasn’t very rich either. We were comfortable, but not flush. Mom says dad always came through in the pinch—the bills got paid, no-one went hungry, but, well, let’s just say that wastefulness was never an option. Food, to me, is never just simple nourishment, nor is it ever just a medium for creative expression. It is both of these things, of course, but it is also always something more. Food is life. And not metaphorically (though it is a rather tidy metaphor) food is, literally, from life, to life, through life, it is the Eucharist, the host and the wine, the body and the blood. We live only through the consumption of life, and some day, when our time comes, we will become food for something else. Food willing. This is a spiritual truth to me. Given this truth, I find it unfathomable that food, good food, is ever wasted—I feel that food, that life, is a gift and one not to be trifled with, it is something that deserves respect and that it should never, ever be wasted.
In stating this I am all but confessing to being something that we cooks call a ‘trash can’ cook. This title is a dart thrown by some who would disparage a style of cooking that creatively redirects what would otherwise be wasted into another use rather than making one of those ‘proper soups’ I learned to make at Gizmo’s. Things like Mom’s ‘end of the week vegetable soup’. Yesterday’s leftover shepherd’s pie as today’s beef chowder, last week’s stir fry as yesterday’s hot and sour soup. Well, frankly, I don’t consider that barb an insult; I will accept that badge of honour and wear it with pride. If a ‘trash can’ cook is someone who doesn’t believe in wastefulness, someone who has a creative spirit, someone who sees life and chooses not to waste it, well, then I am Oscar the Grouch and welcome to the kitchen in my can.
Add the vegetables, meats, and other foods in order of their cooking times.
Soup has always been a peasant food, a meal of thrift. The word ‘Chowder’ comes to us from ‘chaudiere’ the French name for the giant cooking pots in the village squares in coastal France where the fishermen, the working stiffs, were welcomed home with a bubbling stew to which they added the bycatch of the day. Stews, curries, hot pots, pho, every culture has a tradition of using the trimmings creatively to stretch the lifespan of a meal, to use the whole animal, to re-use what would otherwise be lost. Most ‘proper soups’ evolved from these bubbling cauldrons, these products of thrift and ingenuity, these meals that were built not from recipes but rather, from whatever there was to be found. Comforting restoratives. Restore-ants, as it were. It was a concentrated meat broth developed in France that lent its name to the storefronts where it was offered, giving us ‘restaurants’ as we know them today.
Taste and adjust.
I don’t really use a recipe for soup, but I don’t really not use one either. I start by looking around, seeing what is available, what is good, what needs to be used, and then I start with an onion, brown the meats, sweat the aromatics, add the broth, the vegetables and taste and adjust. Just before serving, I add the garnish, the herbs, the pasta... I allow it to simmer, I let the flavours mingle. And I do not waste a single drop.
Mom’s soup was simple. If it was in the fridge, it was fair game: maybe some cans of stuff, maybe some stuff out of the freezer, cover the whole thing with water, adjust the spices, and it was perfect, every time. Leftover chicken or turkey? Boil it for a bit and take out the bones, well, at least most of them. Bean soup? ‘Add some of that salt pork from the freezer.’ ‘How much?’ ‘Oh, you know, some.’
You start with an onion.
I first made ‘proper soups’ at Gizmo’s, a bar and grill in College Station, Texas. I worked there just after High School for about 7 or 8 months. It was owned and run by a couple of sisters who got tired of cocktailing at other bars and decided to start their own. They were Yankees, as we called them, Northerners misplaced in our Southern Town, and they were also city girls with sensibilities that set them apart from the other folks in Northgate, College Station’s bar district. Case in point, they played and allowed only Jazz music on the stereo (the other bars on the strip played only two kinds of music, yep, that’s right: country and western). They decorated with trellises and fake flowers, unlike their competition, there was not one single oil sign, hunting trophy (or, for that matter, any other creative taxidermy experiments) or even a wooden Indian to be found. It was not exactly fancy; it was, after all, a bar, and there was no shortage of neon lights, ashtrays, paper napkins or casual drunkenness. But it aspired to be a bit more. We had no fryer, no pizza oven and no chargrill; we served sandwiches, from a broiler, bread and dips, even steamed vegetables (!) with cheese sauce, and, of course, we served soup.
Laurie and Marsha were in dire need of stepping away from the bar (at least 12 steps away, one would hope) when I met them, and ran this dive-y little jazz bar as one would expect from a couple of waning moons; it was graceful and sloppy, fun and dangerous, exciting and scary. In the evenings, as a 19 year old and the ‘kid’ in the kitchen, I was a mascot of sorts—brought out and shown off, fed drinks and encouraged to entertain. In the mornings, however, it was all business. Laurie, thanks to a long and steady diet of white wine and menthol cigarettes, was creatively past her peak, but had, while ‘up North’ learned to make soups the old fashioned way. Her recipes were explicit, precise, and ‘from scratch.’ We made broth and chopped vegetables; we layered aromatics and sweat them; we made roux and used wine judiciously (at least for cooking...). We added the broth (or the stock) to the sweated vegetables and/or the translucent onions, brought it to a simmer and then added the roots, followed, in 20 minutes or so, by the softer vegetables, and then, eventually, the greens or the cabbage—with the herbs coming last, just before service. Grains were added according to their cooking times, pasta was added to the pot before service, never to the whole batch. Meat was browned just before adding the aromatics, set aside and later returned to the simmering broth. Salt and pepper were added in bits throughout and adjusted at the end to taste... Once, while waiting for Laurie to teach me how to make a roux to finish a gumbo, she spotted an older biker at the bar who was immediately hauled off of his stool and coerced into the kitchen; ‘Chopper’ was an old Cajun from the Bayou and, while stirring the flour into the oil with a long wooden spoon, he carefully explained to me that a proper roux, when finished, carried the same hue as the skin of a mulatto woman. Why, specifically a woman, I never quite understood, but the image stuck, and I think of it every time I make a roux today.
I came to work one day after a break and found the building empty. My last paycheck never came. At the time, I was, understandably, a little peeved, but in hindsight, those lessons in soup and the image of Chopper the Giant Cajun Biker stirring a proper roux in that tiny kitchen more than covered for the lost wages.
You add the broth.
I wasn’t very poor growing up, but I wasn’t very rich either. We were comfortable, but not flush. Mom says dad always came through in the pinch—the bills got paid, no-one went hungry, but, well, let’s just say that wastefulness was never an option. Food, to me, is never just simple nourishment, nor is it ever just a medium for creative expression. It is both of these things, of course, but it is also always something more. Food is life. And not metaphorically (though it is a rather tidy metaphor) food is, literally, from life, to life, through life, it is the Eucharist, the host and the wine, the body and the blood. We live only through the consumption of life, and some day, when our time comes, we will become food for something else. Food willing. This is a spiritual truth to me. Given this truth, I find it unfathomable that food, good food, is ever wasted—I feel that food, that life, is a gift and one not to be trifled with, it is something that deserves respect and that it should never, ever be wasted.
In stating this I am all but confessing to being something that we cooks call a ‘trash can’ cook. This title is a dart thrown by some who would disparage a style of cooking that creatively redirects what would otherwise be wasted into another use rather than making one of those ‘proper soups’ I learned to make at Gizmo’s. Things like Mom’s ‘end of the week vegetable soup’. Yesterday’s leftover shepherd’s pie as today’s beef chowder, last week’s stir fry as yesterday’s hot and sour soup. Well, frankly, I don’t consider that barb an insult; I will accept that badge of honour and wear it with pride. If a ‘trash can’ cook is someone who doesn’t believe in wastefulness, someone who has a creative spirit, someone who sees life and chooses not to waste it, well, then I am Oscar the Grouch and welcome to the kitchen in my can.
Add the vegetables, meats, and other foods in order of their cooking times.
Soup has always been a peasant food, a meal of thrift. The word ‘Chowder’ comes to us from ‘chaudiere’ the French name for the giant cooking pots in the village squares in coastal France where the fishermen, the working stiffs, were welcomed home with a bubbling stew to which they added the bycatch of the day. Stews, curries, hot pots, pho, every culture has a tradition of using the trimmings creatively to stretch the lifespan of a meal, to use the whole animal, to re-use what would otherwise be lost. Most ‘proper soups’ evolved from these bubbling cauldrons, these products of thrift and ingenuity, these meals that were built not from recipes but rather, from whatever there was to be found. Comforting restoratives. Restore-ants, as it were. It was a concentrated meat broth developed in France that lent its name to the storefronts where it was offered, giving us ‘restaurants’ as we know them today.
Taste and adjust.
I don’t really use a recipe for soup, but I don’t really not use one either. I start by looking around, seeing what is available, what is good, what needs to be used, and then I start with an onion, brown the meats, sweat the aromatics, add the broth, the vegetables and taste and adjust. Just before serving, I add the garnish, the herbs, the pasta... I allow it to simmer, I let the flavours mingle. And I do not waste a single drop.
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