The honeymoon is over.
Construction continues - chaos reigns... between the power and water outages, drywall dust and Home Hardware deliveries, gravel trucks and wheelbarrow loads of tools, the meals keep hitting the table with heartbeat regularity. Three weeks into the project, and with twenty-some pounds of beef under our belts, we all keep chugging along at our respective tasks. Some with more chugging, some with more respect.
When I served grilled T-bone steaks last night, I think I heard my last "ooohs". Gone are the heavy sighs of satisfaction, the lip smackings and tummy pattings and "oh wow that was soooo awesome"s. The crew has seen my repertoire of hearty fare; they're putting in long hours at tedious chores and the food-thusiasm is gone. I still hear the murmured thank-yous as they put on their boots and head for the door, but there will be no more surprises, no more amazement at what's set before them. And I can deal with that - I expected that. I still thrive on that meal-time silence punctuated by the clinking and scraping of cutlery on well-cleaned plates.
Of course, all of this might change tomorrow morning. My "assistant cook" arrives tonight. She's a Real Chef. Who actually went to school to be a chef. And I've seen her in action - it's a thing of beauty. She cooks "mise en place" - everything in place. Little bowls of all her ingredients neatly diced and ready to be tossed in at just the right moment. Me, I time the right moment by how long it takes me to chop the onion - as in: the butter is sufficiently browned by the time this onion is chopped. She's going to turn out restaraunt-quality meals in record time and expose me for the ego-centric interloper that I fear I am. And worst of all, she's going to do it IN MY KITCHEN.
You see, she was supposed to arrive last week for her first shift, but we were nowhere near ready to resume cooking in the big commercial dining hall, so I called the whole thing off. But now, I'm tired, I want a break, and the crews are on a split-shift and are, in essence, working an eight day week - with both shifts overlapping mid-week. So she is enroute as I type... but the dining hall floor still needs sealing and the cooler still needs tiling then grouting then sealing... and thus she will be using my house, my kitchen, my tools and she will paw my drawers.
While I'm not keen on it, I can and do function in chaos; I know that the bag of quick oats is buried in the back of the rolling trolley behind the jug of vanilla and beneath the mini marshmallows and icing sugar. Makes perfect sense. I know that the cup of margarine in the fridge is to feed the men, and the half-used foil-wrapped butter is mineallmine. The whipping cream with MA 02 due date is mine - MA 08 is camp's. Three out of four of those loaves of french bread in the deep freeze belong to me. Peaches and Cream corn, me - mixed veg, camp. But how do I explain all this to my keen WonderChef? Wherever will she set her multiple bowls of julienned root veggies? My already-inadequate countertops currently house the coffee urn, a vase of flowers, hubby's coffee flavorings, a bamboo box of tea, my recipe box, baskets of spices and bottles of oil....
Not to mention - what will she say of my wooden cutting board?! It's highly debateable. I know perfectly well that it's far better than plastic due to its natural enzymes which kill bacteria, but did she learn that in her new-fangled school? Hmm? Did she?
She'll likely load my dishwasher all wrong too. People do. YOU know.
Will she play with the cat while she wipes the table, or think it's horrifically unsanitary? My cat rushes up from the basement when she hears the tap running after mealtimes - she loves to try to snag the cloth as I whisk it along the tabletop.
The longer I sit here the more comes to mind... will she drink my good coffee in the morning? Will I share it with her on purpose? Should I leave the food processor on the cupboard for her to use, or will she think it really is broken just because I melted one attachment chopping up alder for smoking a turkey one time so it's all crazy-glued together. It still works pretty good. Just sometimes the glue gets hot and you have to leave it stuck together 'til it cools off again. When is the last time I emptied the crumb catcher on the toaster? Considering I can't remember how to open the crumb catcher, I'm thinking it's been a while. And is keeping the five-gallon pail of sugar next to the garbage can entirely FoodSafe?
All these questions. Mostly, will she cook way better than me. Will I be put to shame. Will the first-shift guys be disappointed that I cook for them, and not her.
I will listen to melancholy music while my dishes cool in their soapy water. My pepper grinder is empty. And I wait.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
fruits de mer
I ate an oyster.
Here's how it happened...
It was in an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet; the kind of place where you wade into a wall of odor - onions, soy, hot fat, fish, sweet and sour sauce - and your skin is instantly saturated with peanut oil. The kind of place where you're so hungry that you don't notice the stained curtains and splattered sneezeguard until you've gobbled up two platefuls. The kind of place where a big sign in red letters posted above the sushi bar reminds you that consuming raw fish greatly increases your chance of foodborne illness. (translation: "don't eat the sushi!!")
It was in the midst of this cacophony of aromas, this steady rythmic murmur of various languages, this "I've-got-three-days-off-work-and-I'm-shopping-with-the-girls" giddiness that my friend and I spotted the oysters in black bean sauce. A tray heaping with gargantuan barnacled shells, the truth of the unappealing mollusc "bodies" concealed with glistening garnish. And my friend and I looked at each other. That knowing look that screams "Dare ya!" While we were at it, we figured we ought to give the cheese mussels a try. And the squid - absolutely.
Actually, I quite like squid. At the Greek restaraunt where I used to work we served baby ones, whole and battered with fritto misto, their little tentacles curling crisply around a pool of garlickypungent tzatsiki. They tasted exactly like batter and tzatsiki. Yum.
Back at the table (this was still our first plateful - we didn't notice the grime on the soy sauce bottle yet) we poked warily at the brown gobs with our chopsticks. Mine was in a smallish shell, belying the fact that it was a gooeysaucecovered monster which popped easily from its anchor and wobbled menacingly in front of my lips. I waited for my friend to pry hers off the shell - it slipped and slithered out of her grasp, refusing to let go of its crusty bed. I was losing my nerve. With a deep breath I shoved the entire mess in my mouth - "this is how you do this, right?" I asked through the black bean sauce. No one had an answer.
It was too big to swallow whole; chewing was in order. I bit down and felt an oozing, an unpleasant gushing across my tongue. The face across the table from me mirrored my grimace. It tasted like the smell of Prince Edward Island's south shore when the tide is out. The smell right where the river runs in and the sign says the shellfish are contaminated and should not be dug. Or eaten. That rotten seaweed stench was in liquid form IN MY MOUTH and I was in public and COULD NOT SPIT. To make my oral holiday complete came the grinding scrunch of sand between my teeth. The face across the table from me started to giggle. I wondered where that promising black bean sauce had gone - all I could taste was muddy ocean and sandy snot.
At some point I mashed the hideous creature enough to swallow it. At some point my friend must have eaten her oyster as well, but I honestly can't even remember now. The mussel was worse - tough and rubbery and agonizingly fishy beneath its melted cheddar blanket... the squid was somewhat less rubbery and delightfully peppery; I do indeed like squid.
The rest of the meal was a mixture of suspense and surprise - fried wonton skins encasing a shocking combination of cheeses and sweetness; mystery meat that didn't seem to get any smaller no matter how long one chewed. Very tasty garlic green beans.
In retrospect, it occurs to me that things like squid and shellfish, molluscs and crustaceans, were not really intended for food. They're the trash compactors of the sea. They're garden pests. At some point in time some starving mother, trying to salvage the last bit of lettuce for her starving children, became so enraged with the voracious snails that she snatched one up, snarled "this'll teach ya!" and popped it in her mouth. She knew it tasted revolting, she knew it may not be nourishing, but she felt slightly less hungry. Thus escargots were discovered. Like authentic Mexican food, people only ate that stuff because they couldn't afford decent food. And now just as there are entire dining establishments with sombreros and pepper lights serving leftovers and calling it "refried beans", people are paying ridiculous prices to consume what are in essence, giant water bugs. It's a prestige thing. Like, if one doesn't like seafood, one has poor taste. "Unepicurean". Well, I can tell the difference between Dove and Callebaut chocolates just by the mouthfeel. I can tell whether you've served me 36% or 18% cream in my coffee, and I can tell if it's Kicking Horse coffee by the smell as its brewing. Don't even try to tell me that there's decaf that tastes like the real thing! I'm secure enough in my good taste that I'll forgo the fanaticism of fruits de mer. Call me crazy, but I'll stick to ginger beef from now on.
Here's how it happened...
It was in an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet; the kind of place where you wade into a wall of odor - onions, soy, hot fat, fish, sweet and sour sauce - and your skin is instantly saturated with peanut oil. The kind of place where you're so hungry that you don't notice the stained curtains and splattered sneezeguard until you've gobbled up two platefuls. The kind of place where a big sign in red letters posted above the sushi bar reminds you that consuming raw fish greatly increases your chance of foodborne illness. (translation: "don't eat the sushi!!")
It was in the midst of this cacophony of aromas, this steady rythmic murmur of various languages, this "I've-got-three-days-off-work-and-I'm-shopping-with-the-girls" giddiness that my friend and I spotted the oysters in black bean sauce. A tray heaping with gargantuan barnacled shells, the truth of the unappealing mollusc "bodies" concealed with glistening garnish. And my friend and I looked at each other. That knowing look that screams "Dare ya!" While we were at it, we figured we ought to give the cheese mussels a try. And the squid - absolutely.
Actually, I quite like squid. At the Greek restaraunt where I used to work we served baby ones, whole and battered with fritto misto, their little tentacles curling crisply around a pool of garlickypungent tzatsiki. They tasted exactly like batter and tzatsiki. Yum.
Back at the table (this was still our first plateful - we didn't notice the grime on the soy sauce bottle yet) we poked warily at the brown gobs with our chopsticks. Mine was in a smallish shell, belying the fact that it was a gooeysaucecovered monster which popped easily from its anchor and wobbled menacingly in front of my lips. I waited for my friend to pry hers off the shell - it slipped and slithered out of her grasp, refusing to let go of its crusty bed. I was losing my nerve. With a deep breath I shoved the entire mess in my mouth - "this is how you do this, right?" I asked through the black bean sauce. No one had an answer.
It was too big to swallow whole; chewing was in order. I bit down and felt an oozing, an unpleasant gushing across my tongue. The face across the table from me mirrored my grimace. It tasted like the smell of Prince Edward Island's south shore when the tide is out. The smell right where the river runs in and the sign says the shellfish are contaminated and should not be dug. Or eaten. That rotten seaweed stench was in liquid form IN MY MOUTH and I was in public and COULD NOT SPIT. To make my oral holiday complete came the grinding scrunch of sand between my teeth. The face across the table from me started to giggle. I wondered where that promising black bean sauce had gone - all I could taste was muddy ocean and sandy snot.
At some point I mashed the hideous creature enough to swallow it. At some point my friend must have eaten her oyster as well, but I honestly can't even remember now. The mussel was worse - tough and rubbery and agonizingly fishy beneath its melted cheddar blanket... the squid was somewhat less rubbery and delightfully peppery; I do indeed like squid.
The rest of the meal was a mixture of suspense and surprise - fried wonton skins encasing a shocking combination of cheeses and sweetness; mystery meat that didn't seem to get any smaller no matter how long one chewed. Very tasty garlic green beans.
In retrospect, it occurs to me that things like squid and shellfish, molluscs and crustaceans, were not really intended for food. They're the trash compactors of the sea. They're garden pests. At some point in time some starving mother, trying to salvage the last bit of lettuce for her starving children, became so enraged with the voracious snails that she snatched one up, snarled "this'll teach ya!" and popped it in her mouth. She knew it tasted revolting, she knew it may not be nourishing, but she felt slightly less hungry. Thus escargots were discovered. Like authentic Mexican food, people only ate that stuff because they couldn't afford decent food. And now just as there are entire dining establishments with sombreros and pepper lights serving leftovers and calling it "refried beans", people are paying ridiculous prices to consume what are in essence, giant water bugs. It's a prestige thing. Like, if one doesn't like seafood, one has poor taste. "Unepicurean". Well, I can tell the difference between Dove and Callebaut chocolates just by the mouthfeel. I can tell whether you've served me 36% or 18% cream in my coffee, and I can tell if it's Kicking Horse coffee by the smell as its brewing. Don't even try to tell me that there's decaf that tastes like the real thing! I'm secure enough in my good taste that I'll forgo the fanaticism of fruits de mer. Call me crazy, but I'll stick to ginger beef from now on.
Monday, February 15, 2010
A Few of My Favorite Things
With no crisis underway or imminent disaster, I thought I would wax poetic about my favorite cooking tools. These are the can'tlivewithout items that I use almost every day:
- my Big Red Pot. This is an 8-quart, cast iron Mario Batali pot, white enamel inside and deep red outside. My gramma sent it to me shortly after Christmas, and I use it daily, and use it for everything. In the past two weeks alone it has perfectly cooked: oatmeal, roast beef, mashed potatoes, multiple soups, gravy, pasta, chili, and cheese sauce. I love it 'cause it can brown my meat, then simmer the soup or roast the cut. Tonight it's going to roast the ham, and then I can make the smoky ham and bean soup in it without wasting any of the crunchy baked-on hammy goodness. Added bonus - it weighs about 8 tons so I get a great upper body workout when I have to drain the potato water.
- my Lee Valley rasp. This one started out its life as a wood rasp, but some clever wife realised its true potential as one of the best kitchen accessories ever. Since it's so sharp, it perfectly grates parmesan cheese, chocolate, nuts, garlic, nutmeg, lemon zest... and it's stainless steel so a quick rinse gets rid of any smells, all ready to turn the next item into fine shavings. Doubles as a fingernail trimmer. Ouch.
- my German mandoline. Not the musical kind - although I have heard about a type of fresh pasta which is rolled thin, then laid on a stringed gadget like a guitar, then rolled over so the pasta all gets cut by the strings... no - my favorite mandoline is a lovely one from Germany with marvellously sharp, angled blades that make short work of julienned carrots or sliced veggies. Safe enough for my ten-year-old to slice the potatoes paper-thin for scalloped potatoes. This tool came from gramma, too!
- my Paderno pepper mill. Oooo I love to gawk at the Paderno line, but I almost never buy... my dear brother-in-law and his wife gave me this one for Christmas a few years back - or was it my birthday? Anyway, it now occupies a place-of-pride right beside my stove. Not the best place to store pepper, but I use it up pretty fast. I love this mill 'cause it's really really tall - like 13 inches - and a beautiful deep brown stained wood with a graceful elegance. It's not one of those globular Taj Mahal types. It grinds lots of pepper in a hurry - fine or coarse or anything in between. Gorgeous.
Yeah, I've got lots of other stuff that I like too - my weird canelloni shaped garlic peeler; my slow cooker; my Henckels knives... but nothing compares to those essentials listed above.
What I really really NEED is a really really GOOD peeler! I know this is a highly controversial subject - I know peelers and peeling methods are hotly debated... but I could use some advice and opinions. I've tried quite a few different ones - even an expensive Henckels, and none fit the bill. Too dull, weird angle, nasty handle, no pivot, odd sticking-out-bits - there are a lot of problems with all the peelers I've tried thus far. I know Jamie Oliver uses a U-shaped peeler, so I'll try that next...
I'm also working on a particular kitchen tool design, but I'm not telling. Can't have someone swipe my idea on me. But when it comes out, oh boy, everyone will want one. Everyone who makes candy or icing or fudge or melted chocolate, that is. No more hints! Don't even ask.
Well, the coffee is nearly ready. Man there's a lot of coffee around here these days! Now, my coffee perk is also a dear friend - can't even compare perked coffee to dull drip. But that's another story...
Friday, February 12, 2010
An Ode to My Tank
One of the things about living on the side of a mountain is the fact that our "driveway" is twenty-some kilometers of forest service roads. Otherwise known as backroads or... trails, even. Now, most of our road is fairly well maintained, but this year weather conditions have perfected the glossywindinglugetrack that we drive far too often. I drove it today, in fact, and we can add "winter driving" to my list of "I can do that", under the classification of "Unsatisfactory".
Cooking for hoards of hungry helpers means stocking up with serious supplies. Our nearest grocery superstore is 1.5 hours away, so we order large-quantity groceries from a company called Sysco. My good pal, the Sysco Guy, gives us a call on his cell (not while he's driving! that's illegal now!) and I caroom down the driveway to meet him on the highway and receive my shipment. Normally, that's how it goes down.
But there's this one corner, just a lovely curvy corner of ice with deeeeeeep steeeep ditches. And those ditches just looked so appealing to my Suburban today that she dove right in, even though I read her thoughts and let out a gut-wrenching "NNNNOOOOOO!!!!". We had left a little early, so the kids and I proceeded to break piles of pine boughs and shove them under the tires, but we only succeeded in carving a series of tunnels through the knee-deep snow. I abandoned my inadequate shoes and pulled on Hubby's big rubber boots, and with a dollar-store army knife worked at whittling off a fallen tree that was threatening to crease a huge dent in the newly-repaired side panels of the truck. The kids hauled more branches and I just kept praying...
Apparently God had other plans for us today, because on our final escape attempt there was a sudden stop accompanied by a resounding "clunk" and I knew we were going no farther. Somewhere in that morass of branches, spun-up gravel and ice crystals there was a rock, and it had decided to hold fast to the tender underbelly of our beloved 'Burban. We locked up and decided to take the Heel Toe Express back up to camp.
Well, the story doesn't have a sad ending - not far along we flagged down my new best friend The Granite Guy, who'd been at camp measuring for our new countertops. He drove us back home and I braced myself for a good ribbing. Our brandnewshiny tractor pulled the 'Burban out with ease. The little grocery/convenience store/gas station in our community accepted delivery of my Sysco order, and the Sysco Guy is reported to have said "When she called and said she was in the ditch, my first thought was: thank goodness she drives a tank!"
This is only the second time in four years that my 'Burban has turned on me and left me looking foolish off the side of our road; not bad really, considering how many trips down that road we make. And she still cradled that big food order all the way home, not even breaking an egg. What can I say? I love my truck.
Cooking for hoards of hungry helpers means stocking up with serious supplies. Our nearest grocery superstore is 1.5 hours away, so we order large-quantity groceries from a company called Sysco. My good pal, the Sysco Guy, gives us a call on his cell (not while he's driving! that's illegal now!) and I caroom down the driveway to meet him on the highway and receive my shipment. Normally, that's how it goes down.
But there's this one corner, just a lovely curvy corner of ice with deeeeeeep steeeep ditches. And those ditches just looked so appealing to my Suburban today that she dove right in, even though I read her thoughts and let out a gut-wrenching "NNNNOOOOOO!!!!". We had left a little early, so the kids and I proceeded to break piles of pine boughs and shove them under the tires, but we only succeeded in carving a series of tunnels through the knee-deep snow. I abandoned my inadequate shoes and pulled on Hubby's big rubber boots, and with a dollar-store army knife worked at whittling off a fallen tree that was threatening to crease a huge dent in the newly-repaired side panels of the truck. The kids hauled more branches and I just kept praying...
Apparently God had other plans for us today, because on our final escape attempt there was a sudden stop accompanied by a resounding "clunk" and I knew we were going no farther. Somewhere in that morass of branches, spun-up gravel and ice crystals there was a rock, and it had decided to hold fast to the tender underbelly of our beloved 'Burban. We locked up and decided to take the Heel Toe Express back up to camp.
Well, the story doesn't have a sad ending - not far along we flagged down my new best friend The Granite Guy, who'd been at camp measuring for our new countertops. He drove us back home and I braced myself for a good ribbing. Our brandnewshiny tractor pulled the 'Burban out with ease. The little grocery/convenience store/gas station in our community accepted delivery of my Sysco order, and the Sysco Guy is reported to have said "When she called and said she was in the ditch, my first thought was: thank goodness she drives a tank!"
This is only the second time in four years that my 'Burban has turned on me and left me looking foolish off the side of our road; not bad really, considering how many trips down that road we make. And she still cradled that big food order all the way home, not even breaking an egg. What can I say? I love my truck.
The Cream Pie Curse
How many times have I seen something... at a store, a craft sale, on tv... and thought -"yeah, I can do that."? Too many. It's that mentality that has me currently swimming in deep waters. Or drowning. And blogging about it.
It's nearly 9am, I have half an hour before Coffee Time. At the moment I'm cooking for a construction crew of 10 - one of which is my husband. They'll want coffee and cookies soon, which I'll take over to the worksite so I can spy on their progress. From my "office" window I can see the whole place - a forest education camp on a mountain in the middle of nowhere. A pile of construction sand protected from the snow with a giant orange tarp. Hubby cruising on his new tractor. Half-demolished cabins and buildings-in-progress. Exciting times around here.
So, a list of the things I thought "I Can Do That" about, and am presently attempting:
It's nearly 9am, I have half an hour before Coffee Time. At the moment I'm cooking for a construction crew of 10 - one of which is my husband. They'll want coffee and cookies soon, which I'll take over to the worksite so I can spy on their progress. From my "office" window I can see the whole place - a forest education camp on a mountain in the middle of nowhere. A pile of construction sand protected from the snow with a giant orange tarp. Hubby cruising on his new tractor. Half-demolished cabins and buildings-in-progress. Exciting times around here.
So, a list of the things I thought "I Can Do That" about, and am presently attempting:
- cooking professionally
- cake decorating
- designing crochet patterns
- painting murals
- homeschooling
- carving a totem pole
- greenhouse gardening
- landscape designing
- interior decorating
- running a Kids' Club
- writing music
- blogging
I'm sure this list will grow with time. I must add that not everything is coming along successfully... I'm on my third totem pole attempt, my greenhouse is full of dead plants, and right now one child is diligently working on school while the other is dozing blissfully. Or maybe reading in bed. I haven't actually checked. So add "parenting" to the list, under the category of "may or may not be doing adequately".
As far as the cooking goes - that all started 4 years ago when we first moved up here. My husband was hired as the Caretaker and I tagged along and looked for stuff I could do. The camp cook at that time was looking for a couple of days off, so I said "I can do that!" and jumped right in, feeding up to 80 camp kids at a time. Since then, I've cooked for various groups; the University of Calgary geology class; Boy Scouts; a teen addictions councelling group; even a sustainable-living activist group who wanted the 100-mile diet. And I'll tell ya, 100 miles from here gets you... nowhere. I may have stretched the boundaries on that menu, a bit.
So now our camp has a bigfatjuicy government grant to rebuild and remodel, so I'm cooking part time for the construction crew. It's been an all-new experience, an eye-opening shocker, at times. Like watching 10 men devour 10 quarts of chili and 4 dozen fresh-baked buns. Then cream pies for afters. Ah yes, the cream pies.
Did I mention that my family suffers from a cream pie curse? Wait - I have to put coffee on...
Ok, coffee's perking merrily.
I have a vivid mental picture from childhood - when my mom was cooking for a harvesting crew one hot summer. We had a pickup with a camper on the back, which we filled with hearty fare and drove out to the field to feed the masses. One day mama made beatiful banana cream pies heaping with heavy whipped cream and we just knew the men would be thrilled to see them. We rocked gently over the furrows in the field, and as we arrived the grain trucks and combines pulled up close like eager puppies to a bowl of gravy. Flinging open the camper door with a flourish we were horrified to see a pale puddle of melted cream flowing across the counter. A lesson in the importance of refridgeration in the maintenance of healthy cream pies.
So this week I tried my hand at cream pies - one coconut, one banana - my first ever. Homemade crust, crisp and flaky in the pans. Carefully stirred and thickened vanilla custard - no powdered junk in my kitchen. The coconut pie was topped with meringue and and doused liberally with toasted coconut... the banana pie was piped in a swirling mass of whipped cream. And it was good. Remembering the Melted Pie Fiasco, I transferred the banana pie to the fridge. Well, tried to. You see, part of our camp facelift has involved complete deconstruction of our walk-in cooler in the commercial kitchen. So I've been doing all this cooking out of my 800 square foot cabin, with my tiny tiny kitchen. And I've got stacks of cans, boxes of produce, and carts of baking supplies lined up and piled up in every spare inch of my house. Including a week's worth of meat defrosting in my over-crowded fridge. So as I shifted the pork to make room for the pie, the crazy pan leaped out of my hand and threw itself, kamikaze-style, against the bottom rack of the fridge. Half the pie clung to the pan, half lay face-down on the bottom shelf. I sat right down on the floor, pork-in-lap, to have a good cry. But my kids are troopers - at my Gasp!and-waaaaail they rushed over and took charge. One got a wet cloth, one patted my shoulder and said "you could scrape it back into the pan - no-one would ever know!" Out of the mouth of babes. With some artful patching, and a little extra leftover whipped cream for good measure, the pie was resurrected and dessert was saved!
But I'm through with cream pies!!
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