(3) Food for Thought

ALL IN ONE by Chris Godfrey
12-course dinner on the go! The idea is that each layer is a delicious, gourmet course. The catch: it's served from a can and each "course" has been blended with gelatine to form this wondrous jello of a meal. This is part of his dissertation; it's supposed to be shocking and thought-provoking, a critique on society's consumerist culture, blah, blah. We forgive him. See the complete list of what's in the can and also check out more photos from fastcodesign.com.

GRAFT by Qiyun Deng
A prototype-stage project creating biodegradable utensils made from bioplastic PLA, a type of plastic material derived commonly from veggie fats, corn starch and even cellulose. This isn't a type of novice technology but Deng's designed the cutlery in the shape of the vegetables they might have come from.
You eat with them. Then, you may want to just eat them. I like. Read more here and from the designer's webpage.

POLICE STANDOFF in Berwick-upon-Tweed 
In Cafe@Marshalls...over quiches.
(facepalm) Those must be damn good quiches and some hungry thieves. BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Mirror all covered the story.

Summer Goodness

With a shiny stainless steel grill and two sets of patio furniture (both recent purchases), it was time to put our finished deck to full use. I decided to invite several dear friends over for a summer BBQ potluck! On the menu: beef bugers, portobello burgers (these were de-LI-cious - I may or may not have had two), honey-glazed Chinese fishballs, porkballs, octoballs, May's Salad of the Week (yes, that's what I'm calling it), fresh seasonal corn-on-the-cob, my kedgeree fishcakes (tilapia & salmon chunks, rice, parsley, etc...), chicken wings, butter cookies, kale crisps, Ms.Vickies, dried mangoes, veggie sticks...I hope I haven't forgotten anything. Then we finished the meal off with a summer classic: s'mores. Of course, there was plenty of ciders, ales, fruity beers and bottles of white wine going around. 

I'd say my plan to gain weight is going quite well. 

416 Snack Bar [Toronto, Canada]

Total hipster joint :). It is a good-sized hole-in-the-wall on Bathurst, just a short walk north of Queen Street. If I had not seen my friend's face through the giant opening that takes up most of the restaurant's storefront (upon which my first reaction was to jump through it in attempt to enter the restaurant), I would have walked right past it. Despite what we were told about the crazy lineups on Friday nights, we managed to get a spot at 18:30. There must have been other events in the city that stole customers away because the place wasn't very crowded even when we left two hours later.

All the dishes on the menu are bite-sized and finger-friendly and as noted on the top of the menu, none require any cutlery. First we ordered the smörgåsbord. Except for the smoked duck (the dark burgundy slices), I can't recall the names of the other cold cuts. The 'bord' also came with pickled yellow beans, a dollop of jam, a block of cheese and a plate of croutes. Everything was tasty and fatty enough to be quite filling. Next came the trini doubles, an exploded vegetarian Jamaican patty with a very bouncy dough. Finally we had oysters from New Brunswick, served with the shells sitting on what must have been at least a tablespoon of salt (still a little confused about that...more flavour?). They were fresh but a tad small for my liking. My other friends ordered the grilled octo salad, spicy tuna hand roll, korean fried chicken and the monster bun (not on the menu). As far as I can tell everyone was happy with their food.

416 Snack Bar should be frequented from time to time, as I believe the menu changes according to the creativity of the owners. Although it is a place which thrives on good munchies and having the cool 'new hangout in town' vibe, the main wall could use a bucket of fresh paint and the decor a bit more love.

The Serial-Blogger Who Never Blogs

Fine. I'll admit it: I am probably the laziest blogger in the entire world...who doesn't give up on blogging. I assume most people who blog, blog frequently and those who only blog once in several many full moons (ahem, like myself) would just give up on blogging all together, admit defeat and realise that it was a lost cause. Nope, not me. I pop by every so often to reassure myself that I am not a give-upper and that I do care about all my blog-babies. (Thank goodness, these blogs aren't real children.)

Just had my 20-something-th birthday this weekend and it is time to turn over yet another new leaf. I am aware that I begin to run out of leaves to turn but this year is a year of optimism. I feel it. It is in the air. I am setting realistic, achievable goals for myself from now on. It is time to be a real adult and accomplish what I set out to do. The goal is ...drumroll please... to blog at least once a week. I will be working 40 to 50-hour weeks in a restaurant, taking on random clusters of 10 to 14-hour shifts. I am most certain that I will have something to discover and share about the food and beverage industry on a weekly basis. :)

Recently I discovered Michael Ruhlman's ratio chart of doughs and batters. Chow.com did a Q&A with Mr. Ruhlman back in 2009 (which was when the book was published) and he oh-so-graciously allowed them to publish the chart online. I can only assume that it's a snippet of what is in his full-sized work Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking. It is interesting to think of cooking and baking in such a rational way. As he also mentioned in the interview, I see how it can be helpful to beginners out there, mostly in reducing the stress of getting things 'just right' in the kitchen. In essentials, I agree. If the dough doesn't work out, instead of worrying about the more technical aspects like room temperature or the way you might be kneading the dough for example, it is much easier for newcomers to fiddle with their flour-to-water ratio. Even a skilled baker will concur that ratio is not something you can mess up, though chefs might have different things to say about it, especially ones who like that creative flair in the kitchen.

Just for good measure though, I will print it out and tack in on a wall in my kitchen as a reassurance that if anything fails, it is not me but how I am reading my cooking scale. The next time I'm in a book store, I will see what other formulae Mr. Ruhlman put in the rest of his book.

Crazy.Insane.Love?

(Preface: Crazy.Stupid.Love. is a movie with some genuine soul. For anyone who has not watched it, there is a part of you missing in you that you don't even know about...yet...until after you've watched the movie, by which point the missing part in you will no longer be missing.)

Anyway...

Just for today, I hate potatoes. I peeled, sliced, chopped, mashed and made Dauphinoise potatoes out of maybe five, six, seven kilograms (or more) of potatoes. I have never touched so many potatoes in the span of two hours at any point in my life...not even when I gobbled 13 mini bags of Walkers Cheese and Onion's this past Sunday.

Maybe I should backtrack a little. We had about 70 customers at the restaurant for lunch service today. Four out of the twelve kitcheneers (students who work in the kitchen as oppose to the ones working front-of-house) were absent. We were seriously swamped with orders. Even though most of the orders were pre-orders, giving us ample time to prep for service in advance, service was still quite intense. It was just my chef trainer and I on the veg section during service...and at one point I was plating five different vegetables on 20 dishes at the same time. 

Veg section is a piece of work I tell you. You are everywhere at all times. Mains is probably the hardest section to master but veg is nasty if you can't be at three places simultaneously, which is a skill (despite being small, swift and relatively agile) I have yet to successfully acquire. "The fish dish wants the cavolo nero (now!); the pork belly needs the mashed potatoes (now!) and the chicory (now!) and the carrot (now!); the venison can't be plated...where are the potatoes...not that kind...the other kind of potatoes (now!); where are the anchovy beignets for the gurnards?! Wait...the gurnards need potatoes too...not the first two kinds - the saffron ones...Shirley, that's a little too much cavolo; the fish will drown in it; Shirley, not enough cabbage; it's a side...; okay, let's get the broccoli on there! Where is the cabbage for the ravioli??? [There is cabbage for the ravioli?! O.o Right! More cavolo nero...] Someone clean this plate!"  You get the picture. Okay, now picture it again, but this time, the kitchen is so heated up by this point that you can do some deep vinyasa flows and hot hatha poses and get a real good detoxifying sweat out of it. What a crazy, crazy day!

Yet, it was my best kitchen day so far. I must be certifiably insane. I am quite burnt out right now but in reflection, I learnt what I never would have on a slow day. I took on some responsibilities today that last week, a month ago or at the beginning of the semester, I would not have thought I could handle. I realise that I love the pressure, the quick pace and the activeness of it all. Don't get me wrong: I still want to bake overly-elaborate, indulgent cakes for rich people but being thrown into the deep end head-first onto a section I had not really prepared for got the stubborn fight in me going. 

Now I am just waiting for the happy, energy crash. zzzZZZzzzzzzzZZzZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......but only after I finish this other blog for ICT...