P i s t a c h i o

Pretty frickin’ hot.

Wearing a respirator mask, Sous Chef Wahid Baig shows off the famous Phaal Curry at a Brick Lane Curry in Little IndiaNYC this week. Getting a whiff of fumes as the curry is heated up is enough to make your insides burn. Ramsay de Give for The Wall Street Journal

“You should make homemade cheese straws,” says Amy Palajian, via ReadyMade.

This must be why.

In my mind, I’m cutting into one of them to see the cross-section, thinking of tongue, which frankly, I don’t really like to do. But from a snout-to-tail point of view, I like that they won’t end up as waste.

At first, I thought they were clever beignets, which provoked a smile, but only briefly, because even though a sweet bit of fried dough is always an  expression of genius, I’d have to pass. For all you adventure-seekers, let me know.

This is the work of April Bloomfield of Breslin, a new NYC resto.

Via More Intellligent Life.

Here’s more on roasted snout.

A young German chef lost two hands in a liquid nitrogen accident.

Kids, we’re not in Kansas anymore.

“Tiradito is said to be the most cherished imprint the Japanese left on Peruvian cuisine. It’s often compared to sashimi for that reason, but it’s actually more like carpaccio.”

The soul of authentic Peruvian cuisine can be found in a humble place called Soñia’s, a popular Lima eatery that specializes in ceviche — fresh, raw fish dressed with lime juice and little else. The fish still carries the flavour of the ocean, and as a foil for the lime’s brightness, ceviche is traditionally served with sweet potato and corn.

In this neighbourhood, where there are cevicherí­as at every turn, Soñia’s, has endured because, for the last 30 years, she has been cooking the fish that her husband pulls from the Pacific that morning. You don’t dine at Soñia’s. You eat what is likely to be the best ceviche you’ve ever had and you’ll try other fish, too, like the fried calamari.

Gourmet advisory: not all Peruvian eating is like this — a little out of the way, very casual and relatively unchanged over three decades. [more]

“I wanted witnesses. I wanted to mark the moment so that we would remember it.”

– Jeff Crump

The book had modest beginnings. “We had in mind a little spiral-bound book,” says Jeff Crump, Executive Chef of Ancaster Old Mill. He wanted to document how his kitchen and a local farm had found an exciting way to work closely together. Then Random House got interested, then a New York agent, then Earth to Table: A restaurant and farm relationship began entertaining inquires about Chinese publishing rights.

“A lot of farmers are gun-shy about working with chefs,” says Crump. “Chefs are picky, and kitchens aren’t naturally geared toward buying from small farms. But Crump found his match in Chris Krucker of nearby ManoRun Organic Farm.

“Chris got it,” says Crump….more

It’s always bothered me that there’s an entire industry churning out vegetarian food made to look like meat.

I saw quite a lot of it last week at the Grocery Innovations show.

This is uniquely North American, because vegetarian cultures have never run out of satisfying ways to cook vegetables without any need to pretend they’re meat. When these cultures use tofu and tempeh, it’s as the things themselves. No mocking, faking or subterfuge.

The Chicago Tribune ran a piece last week about what it called “fake food,” like “Vienna” sausage and “cheese food” singles. But for vegetarianism, why does it need to be fooled into being itself? is it really vegetarianism for carnivores or for social vegetarians? And if so, are they your real market? And if not, is your market not even your own?

Veggie resto owner Karyn Calabrese tells the reporter: “It’s a cultural lure. I serve ‘ravioli,’  but they’re made of turnips, and the filling is macadamia nut cheese. Who do you think would buy it if I said ‘I have a plate of turnip and macadamia nut cheese’?”  A vegetarian, for one, is what I’m thinking. It’s a dubious state to be in if you’re selling your stuff to the self-described converted as something other than what it actually is — or worse, as the thing you oppose.

As a committed carnivore, I had one of the best meals in my life at Live Organic Food Bar on Dupont. What they were able to do without meat was something genius, gorgeous and delicious.

When its integrity is recognized, the thing itself is good, and that’s a worthy thing.

The tension between cooking and masculinity has been resolved. It is now perfectly acceptable for men to show passion for food.

– from The Emergence of the Gastrosexual [2008]

Great news.

Apparently, he’s 33 to 64 years old, passionate about cooking and may also use his cooking to seduce. Curiously, or maybe not, even though he cares about the authenticity of a dish and cooking from scratch, he’s not above buying prepared food. Asian is the style of cooking that captivates him most.

I hope the Gastrosexual doesn’t go the way of the Metrosexual, like a tony sauce that was once a notch on your gastronomical belt, but is now relegated to the catch-all shelf on the fridge door. You don’t want to throw it out because it’s beautifully packaged, it was expensive and still has some cachet.

The sauce calls to you every so often, and you think about it for a minute, and then decide to be honest with yourself.

You’re just not into it anymore.

Riffling through some research for a profile I’m writing about Anne Yarymowich, Executive Chef of the Art Gallery of Ontario, I came across a couple of those “Why-aren’t-there-more-women-chefs?” articles, and I have to ask: why are we still measuring women against men in terms of a body count?

The complaint is a half-empty glass, and in a gulp, all women cooking professionally are “not enough,” particularly the new 26-year-old chef being reviewed in said piece and whom the writer admired.

No one should enter a field to represent her gender. Our only purpose is to feed the fire in our bellies, whatever the work. The fire knows more than we do, and it’s not gender-specific.

Out of the Frying Pan is a memoir by Gillian Clark, who left a career in communications to become a chef. [Been there. Can quickly relate.]Despite some tender moments from her childhood — particularly her description of how her father inspired her love of cooking — Clark doesn’t sugar-coat a thing:

…the long hours and what that meant to her kids, whom she was raising alone

…the tenuous hold her restaurant owners often had on their businesses

…the struggle to build and train a great team, only to lose great key people, again and again

…those difficult cooks and kitchen helpers who turn out to be fiercely loyal, enduring and true, but still prickly…

I particularly enjoyed Clark’s most telling display of visionary womanhood: to open her own restaurant despite her kids’ challenges. She said her kids deserve a mother who has the courage to follow her dreams. This would show them how to follow theirs.

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