Much Ado About Salad

I have a long history of killing plants. Not from neglect. In fact, I am so attentive to them that I smother them with too much affection. I water them too much, give them too much sun, feed them too much and get too zealous in driving pests away.

However, I do take instruction well. Now that I am a home owner, with space to grow things, I've started educating myself through books and friends whose own gardens are like Eden itself.

Lo and behold, I have grown something that I can actually eat. I grew two rows of organic Lettuce Rouge D'Hiver (Lactuca sativa) from seed this season. It is a French lettuce similar to Romaine, with shades of red like its name suggests, and a light, peppery aftertaste. It took a very long time to get big and leafy due to the lacklustre summer weather. Once or twice it even wilted a bit due to some freak heat spells. But it is a hardy plant that springs right back with a bit of water and sun. It's also a gift that keeps on giving: I trim only what I need and the rest goes on growing.

Also from seed, I grew a flower pot full of lemon basil. My fingers smell like lemons or lemongrass every time I touch the delicate little leaves. Unlike other sweeter varieties of basil, the leaves of the lemon basil are narrow and petite. It has a lot of applications in Asian cuisine, particularly in curries.

However, to celebrate my first harvest -- can't believe I'm actually using that word! -- I decided to make a simple vinaigrette using good quality olive oil, balsamic vinegar and finely chopped lemon basil. I would like to emphasize "good quality" because cheap oils are tasteless and supermarket vinegars are sharp and acrid. When you allow yourself to splurge even just a bit on these things, you quickly learn how they are supposed to taste: smooth, rounded with fruity notes. I used to hate balsamic vinegar until someone bought me the fancy stuff... now I can't go back.

I chopped my red lettuce, cut strips of orange and yellow bell peppers that I had roasted and peeled, tossed everything together with the vinaigrette, and sprinkled some freshly ground pepper and fleur de sel. Some crumbled feta cheese or goat cheese would have been a nice addition.

I finally understand why gardeners become so infatuated with sticking seeds in soil, getting dirt under their fingernails, duking it out with unwanted pests, and rejoicing whenever it rains. It's the same reason why cooks like to make things from scratch, fussing over high quality ingredients, kitchen equipment and culinary techniques.

So it looks like the black thumb is going away, hopefully to be replaced by a green thumb. I can't wait until next year to start growing more ambitious edibles. Send me your suggestions!

An Alphabet for Gourmets (1949)

It is with great regret that I confess total ignorance of M.F.K. Fisher (1908 - 1992) and her body of work up until today. She was not so much a "food writer" as a writer who thought a lot about food through essays and short stories. She published over twenty books and two volumes of journals and letters written in her unique style that led many readers to believe for a while that she was a man.

Fisher even produced a translation of Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's "The Physiology of Taste" in 1949. I've been reading the 1970 translation by Anne Drayton, which is perfectly competent but I wonder now what Fisher's interpretation must be like.

Gourmet magazine has republished a series of her essays online called "An Alphabet for Gourmets" -- a collection later printed as a book.

By chance, I stumbled upon her "S is for Sad..." segment. If you want to know what my book is about, I encourage you to read Fisher's take on the inextricable link between death, food and appetite.

"...underneath the anguish of death and pain and ugliness, hunger and unquenchable life are facts, shining, peaceful. It is as if our bodies, wiser than we who wear them, call out for encouragement and strength and, in spite of us and of the patterns of proper behavior we have learned, compel us to answer, and to eat."

Anyone Can Cook

I have been profoundly inspired by this man: Mick Trueman of South Yorkshire, England.

He is not a professional chef. He has not inked any best-selling cookbooks. He's not a food writer or a renowned food critic.

Mick, 51, is a coal miner.

So what the hell am I writing about him for? What does he have to do with food or cooking?

My introduction to Mick "the Miner" was on superstar chef Jamie Oliver's most recent TV series, "Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food", now showing on Canada's The Food Network.

Oliver, that darling of cooking shows, has long been a crusader for improving nutrition and food awareness in his native England. English cuisine -- an oxymoronic term for some -- already suffers from a sullied reputation. Artery-clogging fish and chips, waist-expanding bangers and mash, salty kippers and cholesterol-laden eggs for breakfast, liquor-drenched plum pudding are all tasty inventions for sure, but none of it qualifies as haute cuisine, never mind healthy. It is by unfortunate extension that the Brits are the butt of fat jokes and especially bad teeth jokes (think "Big Book of British Smiles" which the dentist on "The Simpsons" shows to children to terrorize them into taking dental hygiene more seriously).

Jamie Oliver first tried to tackle the national school system, encouraging school cafeterias to prepare healthy, cost-effective meals for children instead of taking the easy (some say lucrative) way out by selling pre-packaged junk food. Now he is trying to take on one town at a time, pitching his "Pass it On" idea: if you teach two people how to cook something easy, delicious and healthy, and if each of the two taught two other people, and if those people taught other people, ... eventually a whole community could learn it. Then maybe, just maybe, it would inspire them to start cooking their own meals using fresh local ingredients, instead of resorting to a diet of take-outs, frozen dinners, potato chips, and other deplorable trash.

To test his theory, he recruited a horde of burly, skeptical blokes from a football (er, "soccer" to us North Americans) game who had never cooked before in their lives. Mick "the Miner" was one of the first two men selected to be taught by Oliver himself: a fast, savory, one-pan recipe for prosciutto-wrapped chicken breasts, seared asparagus spears drizzled with lemon juice, and a crisp side of salad. Click here to view a video of Mick "the Miner" passing on the recipe to two other men as Jamie Oliver looks on.

When asked, Mick had initially declared that cooking was for "poofs" (that's derogatory English slang for "gays"). His dutiful wife cooked for him every day, which seemed a foregone conclusion for a man who assumed it was "woman's work" anyway. Not once in his life had he picked up a frying pan, let alone cooked a whole meal.

Yet as you can see in the video clip, Jamie Oliver's experiment marked a startling revelation and transformation for Mick. He later says to Oliver that cooking that first meal was probably one of the most significant moments of his life: "It was like Picasso had walked into my life and taught me how to paint". The way Mick beams with utter joy and a rich sense of accomplishment every time you see him cook is incredibly infectious. I catch myself grinning ear-to-ear whenever he's on the screen. His wife is touched and amused, trying to stay out of his way in the kitchen and watching him with adoration. "It's incredibly romantic," she says, and you can't help but agree.

After the experiment, Oliver and camera crew followed Mick to the coal mines to see the kind of searing, filthy, back-breaking work that these tough men endure. Apart from the cultural chauvinism about cooking, it became blatantly obvious why these boys wouldn't want to cook after a long, brutal day in the claustrophobic darkness.

Yet Mick has flourished and grown to absolutely love the culinary arts. Just weeks later, he's at home, cooking a pasta dish with peas, ham and a lemon dressing for his family and Jamie Oliver. Mick is fearless, confident and bubbling with enthusiasm over the flavors he has orchestrated for his audience. Oliver asks for seconds. As the celebrity chef leaves, he lets Mick know that in the past 10 years, he has been invited to a home-cooked meal only 5 times -- this being the 5th and a great honor.

Watching Mick "the Miner" is like seeing that thing you love through a fresh pair of eyes that is still in the midst of falling in love. Thank you Mick for your wonderful attitude and spirit!

Mother's day

I'm dedicating this post to my mother for mother's day and also to Nicholas for creating the most delicious mother's day "French (oh I mean English) onion soup that he made for my mother's day dinner. I had no idea that onions can melt in your mouth it was that good.

Last May my sweet mum (Stana) came to visit me all the way from Australia. I thought she would like to have a holiday and let me cook for her, but no she insisted in making home made phyllo pastry (I have to find these photos and post another time), then turning that into cherry strudel. She also made home made pasta and danish pastries from scratch. What could I do....stop her?? You must realise that I crave my mums cooking every day. what an inspiration. I'm also wondering if my neighbours ever complained about her getting up at 6 am and trimming my hedges and grass..that woman never stops...yes she gardens as well (on a larger scale). This is my mothers way of being, she give and gives and gives like its a bottomless pit. In that pit you will find abundance and we are all hungry souls for her goodness. I took these photos in order to capture her essence while baking her recipes hoping to one day gather them all up to translate into English from Serbian with a photo for each recipe.. Would be nice to have as a keepsake especially to hand down to my kids. Apparently, she takes good sunrise photos. This one is especially meaningful to me as I used to get up at 5 am in Apollo Bay just to watch the sunrise as its really spectacular.
These are her cardamon cinnamon buns...Mugino had at least 5 in one sitting!!! ;)

Oh and I made a strawberry shortcake for a friends baby blessing on the long weekend. Nicholas was the helper, chocolate melter and strawberry cutter. It was a four layer cake - all organic ingredients.

The Anti-Restaurant

A friend recently informed me about a local underground phenomenon called Charlie's Burgers. You can go ahead and click the link, but the website reveals nothing. What little the public knows is unreliable and unverifiable.

In a nutshell, Charlie's Burgers is the name for Toronto's latest anti-restaurant -- a gourmet dining experience that eschews the rigidity and commercialism of a fixed format and venue. Dinners take place at secret locations. The one-off menus are eclectic and adventurous. Guests get to sit at the dining table by invitation only. And reportedly, the roster of chefs include the city's finest talent.

As novel as this sounds, the idea of the anti-restaurant has been around for some time. While I am sure there are examples of this globally, I am speaking specifically of the speakeasies or private kitchens of Hong Kong. The high cost of renting restaurant space and complying with regulatory requirements have driven modest cooks to set up shop, usually at home, serving food without a license.

I first became acquainted with HK's private kitchens upon seeing the "Hidden Hong Kong" episode of Gourmet magazine's Diary of a Foodie. It features Margaret Xu Yuan, a retired advertising executive turned amateur chef. This self-taught torch-bearer of authentic Hong Kong cuisine uses traditional, lo-tech cooking techniques such as manually grinding grains in a stone mill and pressing soy milk curds to make tofu from scratch. [Note: Yuan's recipe for Yellow Earth Chicken is available online. You can also see the Flickr photo album of her private kitchen, Cuisine X (since renamed Yin Yang, I believe).]

Back in Toronto, the mythical "Charlie" requires interested parties to fill out a survey. If the answers satisfy, you get a chance to be considered for a place at the next dinner table. Being a security professional, it's not in my nature to take leaps of faith like this without arming myself with information, but I answered the survey anyway. One question asked me to describe myself without stating the obvious ("I like food" or "I like to cook"). So I told "Charlie" about my cookbook (didn't mention the blog, though). Apparently, that was good enough because my response was accepted. And now we wait to see if I get the luck of the draw. I might not be allowed to talk about it if I do get chosen, but I think you'll be able to tell by watching this blog.

Gastronome Montréalais

I'm a confirmed Torontonian now, having settled into a house of my own last year. But I was, and forever will be, a Montrealer.

Most of the life experiences I draw from took place on that island. Admittedly, the novelty of the city had long worn off by the time I uprooted myself and migrated over to Toronto. When people ask me if I miss it, my answer is typically "no". I've grown tired/bored of rabid Quebec separatism, the stagnant local economy, ill-conceived city management, psychotic drivers, reliably unreliable public transit, a long-suffering and dwindling press, the World Film Fest which has been plagued with an inferiority complex in comparison to its more glamorous peers, and a downtown core that has lost its lustre for me.

That is not to say that I don't yearn for certain things. Obviously, I miss my family and the close circle of friends who have blessedly remained close -- out of sight but not out of mind. And then there's the food. What Montreal lacks in cosmopolitanism, it makes up with gastronomic delights (especially French cuisine) in spades.

The last apartment I had in Montreal was located in an up-and-coming neighborhood, since renamed Monkland Village. I lived upstairs from an SAQ shop (the Quebec version of the Ontario LCBO), St. Viateur (maker of Montreal's best and IMO the world's best bagels), and a tiny but excellent fishmonger.

There were the obligatory Second Cup and Starbucks shops across the street, but far more alluring were the French bakery/cafes: Première Moisson, Au Pain Doré, La Pâtisserie de Nancy. Java U and Benedict's were also local staples as well as a perpetually revolving selection of restaurants that came and went over the years (including the legendary Fran's cafe bistro, which made the city's best cakes until it closed after the owner retired, or so I heard). In the years since I left town, it has further augmented its gustatory selection, including a dazzling kitchen supply store, an adorable cupcake shop, and a gourmet butcher shop.

On summer days, I could smell fresh batches of bagels baking in the wood-burning ovens of St. Viateur. I would use those olfactory cues to run downstairs to buy a dozen bagels that were still warm and at their peak of deliciousness. Weekend mornings had to begin with a visit to Pâtisserie de Nancy, which served the finest croissants I have ever had to date. They are light yet buttery, with a flaky golden exterior and a fluffy and chewy interior. Accompanied by a bowl of cafe au lait, it was the perfect breakfast.

All these provisions were a hop-skip-and-jump away from home. Toronto has amazing bakers, butchers, fishmongers, grocers, etc. but they are dispersed so very far apart that it requires some planning and significant travel time to access.

My most recent visit to Montreal fulfilled a long-standing wish: dinner at Au Pied de Cochon. My parents made this dream come true on the occasion of my birthday (Thanks Mom & Dad!). Au Pied is the brainchild of chef Martin Picard, known to many as the star of The Food Network's The Wild Chef.

I've sung the praises of nose-to-tail eating before. This was my opportunity to open my mind and palate to dishes that are truly unfamiliar or inaccessible to me, namely the use of offal like head cheese (which is not cheese at all, but meat from an animal's head), pig's trotters and ears, blood sausage and foie gras.

The first thing that struck me when we walked into the venue was the smell of roasting meat and maple syrup. I don't mean the stink of artificial maple flavoring -- lately, someone in the office has been bringing in a snack that overwhelms the recycled high rise oxygen with a sickening odor of synthetic maple. No, this was the soothing fragrance of a sugar shack in the woods that has begun the annual process of boiling maple tree sap. It made my appetite soar.

For my starter, I ordered the Head Cheese Fritters (pictured at the top). I was expecting the meat to be tough but it was tender and also flavorful like roasted ham. The shredded meat was shaped into cubes, battered and fried. Enhancing the taste was the exquisite sauce -- it had a wonderful mustard kick from capers, and benefited from fresh herbs and what I believe was a Hollandaise sauce.

I chose the Cured Foie Gras and Boudin Tart for my main. From what I understand, the foie gras was salt-cured. Boudin is a blood sausage. The tart crust was a flaky puff pastry. There was a layer of creamy sauce, topped with caramelized onions, thin slices of potato, along with beautifully cooked Boudin and the superbly delicate foie gras rounds.

The portions were massive -- big enough to feed two or possibly three people. I could barely eat half of my tart. It goes without saying that I asked the affable waiter to doggie bag my leftovers. Even the next day it was mind-blowingly good.

My only regret was that I couldn't sample more. Next time I visit, I plan to order an array of starters and appetizers in order to taste as many things as I possibly can.

I haven't had much of an appetite to eat or cook since coming back (hence the dearth of blog posts this month). One might say that my appetite is still in Montreal, where it wants to be.

Potluck Challenge

I have a love and hate relationship with potlucks.

I enjoy the element of surprise when you arrive at a party and find an eclectic spread of dishes that are likely foreign to you. It's also a rare opportunity for me to cook in larger volumes than usual -- it gives me an excuse to make grand dishes like a whole roast or a deep-dish pie.

However, catering to the dietary needs or preferences of a group of people is extremely limiting. A lot of potluck standbys like casseroles, stews, and lasagna typically involve meat and/or dairy. Trying to go vegan in order to satisfy the vegetarians and severely lactose intolerant individuals isn't always enough. Nuts are often found in vegan recipes as a source of protein, but nut allergies are unpredictable and scary to someone like me who eats them with abandon. Gluten intolerance forces the exclusion of various grains. The caveats are endless.

There's also the problem of portability and temperature. Stews are great one-pot recipes, but they're a bitch to carry, especially via public transit. Dishes like pie and lasagna need to be carried horizontally in front of you; you can't just throw it in a backpack or sling it over your shoulder. Try balancing a tray of food on a crowded bus filled with pushy jerks and over-sized bags jabbing into your backside. If it's piping hot when you finish making it, you have to factor in the cool-down time before you can take it to go, and figure out how to reheat it once you get to the party. If it needs to stay chilled, you have to put it in a cooler and make sure there's a fridge/freezer at your destination.

Which is why I was relieved to find a recipe for "Lemony Chickpea Stir-fry" at 101 Cookbooks. I don't anticipate any objections from the people at the potluck regarding any of the ingredients. I had trouble finding kale this weekend so I used some kai-lan instead. It's an appropriate substitution given that kai-lan is also known as Chinese kale. It would have been nice to use two colors of zucchini like the recipe author did, but unfortunately, the yellow variety was unavailable. I was short on shallots so I supplemented it with some green onion. The chickpeas were soaked in water and rinsed thoroughly to cut down on their fart factor. Here's hoping that the dish will be welcomed at the potluck.

The Physiology of Taste

"The pleasures of the table belong to all times and all ages, to every country and every day; they go hand in hand with all our other pleasures, outlast them, and remain to console us for their loss."

Not long ago, my father sent me the 1970 English translation of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's "The Physiology of Taste". He had been rooting through some of the older books in his formidable library and stumbled across a Japanese edition of the same book. Aware of my cookbook project, he figured that I might be interested in reading it too.

Indeed I am. My reading progress has been slow -- at work, I read hundreds of pages of technical and business documents every week, which disinclines me to read outside the office -- but the book has delighted me from page one. [Note: a free eBook edition of the first English translation in 1854 by Fayette Robinson is available here.]

"Tell me what you eat: I will tell you what you are."

Brillat-Savarin's tome on gastronomy was published just two months before his death in 1826, but it has had a lasting influence to this day. It is a unique, sometimes cheeky collection of essays, anecdotes, recipes, scientific observations and history lessons that all relate to the pleasures of good food and dining. I think if Brillat-Savarin were alive today, he would have taken to blogging like fish to water.

There are random chapters about the physiology of the tongue and olfactory system (this, being written in a time when people still had their tongues cut off as punishment in certain parts of the world, presents some interesting observations about the sense of taste), the linguistic limitations of describing smells and flavors, the correct way of frying foods in oil, how to make perfect bouillon, the relatively recent introduction of turkey to the European diet (brought over from the New World to the Old), the erotic properties of truffles, experiments on making great coffee and the author's abrupt decision to abstain from the beverage after a long night of insomnia, the effects of chocolate on women, and so on.

One point comes through loud and clear through all his random musings: Brillat-Savarin loved food. He had an intimate knowledge of cooking, which was then considered a chore of the lower classes. He understood that peasant food was fresh, hearty, and deeply comforting, having spent less time traveling from kitchen to table than the meals of the upper class. He revered those who had honed their culinary craft to an art and enjoyed the company of those who were able to appreciate everything from the aromas of chocolate to the texture of a perfectly cooked quail. It was his assertion that anybody who claimed to dislike a certain food was a person who never had it prepared properly, or was not born a gourmand.

Speaking of gastronomy, Brillat-Savarin wrote: "For what could be refused to her who supports us from the cradle to the grave, who lends new delights to love, strengthens the bonds of friendship, disarms hatred, facilitates the conduct of affairs, and offers us, during our brief span of life, the only pleasure which, having no aftermath of weariness, remains to refresh us after all the rest?" That's my kind of guy.

To Fish, or Not to Fish

I'm sorry that I haven't posted anything new in a while. A nasty cold/flu knocked me out for a week and I still haven't fully recovered. Having lost my appetite, the kitchen holds little appeal for me at the moment. So here's a little food for thought instead.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal published a paper this week that questions the wisdom of advising people to eat more fish when the world's fish stocks are in critical decline.

It's very easy for a doctor to tell her patients to eat more of this or less of that. How often do these doctors think about the ecological and ethical ramifications of their counsel? What if doctors start recommending foie gras as an effective means of preventing cancer? Would it lead to the cheapened, mass production of the product, prompting unscrupulous businesses to practice barbaric, industrial methods of force-feeding ducks and geese? Would consumers stop caring about ethics or animal rights if it means dodging the cancer bullet? What would be the impact of mass duck/goose farming to the food chain or the environment?

The Canadian researchers who authored "Are dietary recommendations for the use of fish oils sustainable?" weighed the limited health benefits of fish against the devastating ecological and socio-economic impacts of depleting fish stocks. Even fish farms are no solution, because popular fish like salmon and tuna are carnivorous -- an increase in their farming requires the further depletion of smaller fishes that comprise their diet.

I've always rebelled against sudden, ubiquitous health fads like the soy craze, probiotic obsession or the omega-3 mania. It leads uninformed people to overdo it, and even those who aren't buying into it find it impossible to avoid when manufacturers start pumping these supplements into all kinds of products. There's a butterfly effect to every dietary choice. It's a good sign when the medical professionals start considering the bigger picture before doling out their advice.

The Chef as Artist

"Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: give me leave to do my utmost." - Isak Dinesen [from "Babette's Feast"]

I got into a heated debate with a colleague the other day. This man often tells me exasperating stories about his family's fickle dining behavior. He will cook dinner to his children's precise specifications instead of defining the parameters of the meal himself. If their whims suddenly change, he will indulge them by cooking another meal over again from scratch. One child will eat only certain classes of foods and only with a particular condiment. The other will overdose on sugar if left unchecked. Neither of them eat balanced meals of their own volition, which prompted me to ask how they came to be so fussy. He conveniently blames his wife for instilling these bad behaviors, but I listen to him bitch and complain daily about the countless foods he dislikes and his convoluted, self-imposed dietary restrictions based on old wives' tales.

I bite my tongue through most of these stories, but I finally had my breaking point with his latest anecdote. He and his wife went to an expensive restaurant with a highly regarded reputation. There was a spicy dish on the menu that his wife was adamant about having, yet she doesn't like spicy food. Preparation of the dish required the spices to be deeply infused into the ingredients, so there was no easy way to make it less spicy. Instead of ordering another dish, my colleague told the waiter to tell the chef to thoroughly wash off the ingredients and gave further instructions on how to cook the rest of the dish.

I was aghast. My face probably had the same dumbfounded expression that the waiter displayed -- an expression that my friend apparently found puzzling.

To begin with, I have never been able to understand food fussiness. I'm not talking about managing allergies or digestive intolerances, making health-conscious or ethical choices, or the avoidance of tainted food. I mean the arbitrary, irrational dislike of a particular food. I say "irrational" because there is no logical argument for why a person should hate strawberries, for example. Friends have often heard me say that I hate brussels sprouts, but this isn't an accurate statement: I have no trouble eating them if they're on my plate, and will admit that they are pretty good when fried with bacon. (After all, almost everything tastes great with bacon. Even chocolate.) It's been my lifelong mantra to try anything once, and when it comes to food, there is nothing that I wouldn't consider eating if cooked well.

Human beings have an instinctive but retarded fear of anything unfamiliar. I'm old enough to remember a time when sushi grossed out everybody who wasn't Japanese. "Ewwwwww," the grade school twits would castigate me as I ate the food of my cultural heritage. Today, it's both gratifying and contemptuously ironic that you can't pass a downtown block without stumbling across someone peddling sushi. It makes me rebel by embracing everything.

I've also long argued that a person who claims that she hates something, probably just had an isolated, unfortunate experience with a rotten or badly prepared version of that thing. I've successfully tested this theory with a number of people, including (and especially) myself. For most of my life, I didn't see the point of super-hot and spicy flavors, because all I felt was the burn. Then one day, it was explained to me that good quality chilies and hot sauces have a discernible flavor that isn't overtaken by the heat. One taste of a lovely habanero mango hot sauce purchased at a hot sauce specialty shop turned me around completely. I haven't looked back.

Yet the greatest affront in my colleague's story was that he told the chef how to cook the chef's own dish. This place wasn't Harvey's. My friend argued that as a paying customer, he has every right to dictate how he is to be served. I couldn't have disagreed more. The way I see it, you are not paying to be served -- you are paying for the honor of experiencing one particular person's interpretation of food. The chef is an artist and the restaurant is his/her gallery. What idiot would tell Picasso to stop painting Cubist people with eyeballs where their shoulders should be? What douchebag would tell Francis Ford Coppola that he should have cast someone other than Brando in "The Godfather"? What moron would tell Mozart that "The Magic Flute" would have been better without all that singing?

When I was in Miami a few years ago, I took the opportunity to dine at Nobu. Chef Nobu Matsuhisa is a legend in the world of Japanese fusion cuisine. Without any second guessing, I immediately went for the full-course omakase menu. Omakase loosely translated means "I leave it up to you"; it is the chef's personal selection of dishes. No clue is given as to what will be served: the element of surprise is the objective. The price for all of this was steep. Yet I had no inclination to complain or dictate what was presented to me. Every bite was a revelation.

If I ever have the extraordinary fortune of experiencing something like Heston Blumenthal's Perfect Christmas Dinner, it would be an honor to let him dish out whatever he's got. If Blumenthal wants me to eat his brussels sprouts, you betcha I will and I'll be damned happy about it.

The same etiquette applies when dining at a friend's house. If someone spent hours slaving over the stove to make a special meal for me, I'm not going to sulk in my chair that the rice wasn't cooked the way I like it, or that brussels sprouts were put into the casserole. I'll eat it all with gratitude and great relish.

My colleague retorted with another story. There is a steakhouse that he frequents because their steaks are his "favorite". Yet there too, he tells them to butterfly his steaks before grilling them because they never cook it to the right doneness. Was he not justified in making this request?

First of all, why is this his "favorite" steakhouse if the cooks are too incompetent to know how to grill a steak medium-rare? Second of all, there's a vast difference between the expectation of something that was offered and promised vs. demanding something that is above and beyond what the chef has committed to do in his/her menu. Expecting a steak to be cooked medium-rare when that's what you ordered is perfectly reasonable. If it wasn't cooked right, the reasonable thing to do is send the steak back. (If poultry isn't cooked right, you better send it back! You can get salmonella poisoning or worse.) It's not reasonable to change the process and procedures already established in the kitchen.

I have zero tolerance for high maintenance dinner guests ("can you replace the tomato with a red pepper, make my croutons extra crispy, hold the garlic, put the marinade on the side even though I know the chicken is supposed to be marinated in it, make sure you drain those fries on a paper towel, and do you use olive oil or vegetable oil in this dish?"). There is a funny scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm in which someone orders a Cobb salad but asks for virtually every main ingredient to be substituted for something else. In the end, what the person is asking for is another kind of salad that is on the menu, but instead of ordering that, the person insists on having the Cobb salad.

My impatience for people who create unnecessary complications, combined with my Japanese abhorrence for stepping beyond one's place, are admittedly personal biases. Perhaps there is justification for telling a chef how to do his/her job. But given how arbitrarily people develop their personal preferences, how far can one encroach on an artist's right to free expression?

First Blush

I realize that drinking wine is a fun pastime (or addiction), not cooking. But I'd like to give a special nod to the Cosme Palacio y Hermanos Rioja from the Bodegas Palacio in Spain.

Back when I used to live in Montreal, I once had an apartment located above an SAQ (the Quebec liquor board) store. I didn't earn as much back then, so I was on the lookout for affordable, quality wines. The curly gold typeface of the Palacio label caught my eye, and the under-$25 price was equally attractive. That was a foundational moment in my existence as an oenophile. The Hermanos Rioja is the reason why Riojas are my favorite budget varietal. It is full-bodied and ripe with berry notes. You can feel gluttonous without breaking the bank.

I couldn't find it on LCBO shelves when I first moved to Toronto. For one brief summer it appeared, then disappeared again. I was resigned to the idea of having it only when I went back to Montreal for a visit.

The past month was a grueling one in terms of work: I did overtime every evening and every weekend, promptly breaking my new year's resolution to maintain a better work/life balance. When the work was over, I decided to celebrate with some wine.

To my amazement, not only did I stumble across my beloved Rioja, it was a 2004 Reserva. "Reserva" generally denotes a higher quality wine that has been "reserved" (i.e. aged) for a period before being sold. 2004 also happens to be a pretty good year for Riojas.

The excitement of finding that bottle in Toronto, and the building anticipation as I brought it home was as intoxicating as the wine itself. Cheers to the simple pleasures in life.

Breaking Bread

Every year, I go through a period of baking bread for several consecutive weekends. My 2009 bread-baking phase has just begun. The fact that snow has finally begun to melt has spurred me to end hibernation and start getting active again.

Making bread from scratch is both easy and difficult. The directions for doing it are fairly simple. It's time-consuming, only because there are long periods in which you have to sit back and wait for the yeast to do its job; the manual effort required is minimal. Yet there are books upon books written about the subject because there is no single "right" way of making bread while there are so many ways of getting it wrong.

Flour, yeast and water are the core ingredients. It's not as straightforward as it sounds.

The choice of flour is wide-ranging. One thing for certain, the conventional white flour found in grocery chains are inadequate for making good bread. Hard-wheat flour is the choice of professionals according to James Beard, "the dean of American cookery" and author of the seminal "Beard on Bread".

For leavening, you have a choice of fresh ("compressed") yeast or active dry yeast. You can also grow your own starter. Justin Piers Gellatly -- the head baker and pastry chef at Fergus Henderson's St. John restaurant in London -- nurtures his own starter named "Mother", made with rhubarb, water, yogurt, and a variety of flours. Fleischmann's active dry yeast is probably the most pervasive brand in North America (I remember using it in Home Ec. class). Unfortunately, I find that it gives off too much of a commercial, yeasty smell in any bread made with it. I've tried no-name and organic brands with varying levels of success.

There's room for experimentation with the water as well. While tap water is the obvious choice, some bakers use filtered water. Baguette bakers allegedly benefit from the use of fresh spring water. Nigella Lawson recommends "potato water", which is the starchy water left over from boiling a few potatoes; this tip has worked remarkably well for me. (Another Nigella tip is to mix yeast directly into the flour without proofing it separately first -- it certainly speeds things up, but I'm not totally convinced yet that this is conducive to light bread.) Chinese bakery demands alkaline water, as I learned from Episode 4, Season 1 of "Diary of a Foodie". Water temperature also impacts the bread: if it gets much hotter than 115°F, the yeast cells will start to die. In addition, the quantity of water needed changes significantly depending on the altitude and climate. The volume specified in a recipe is almost never the required amount.

Kneading the dough is another significant component of bread-making. Every baker has a different hand movement that works for them. I've worked out a one-handed, quarter-turn method that allows me to switch sides if one hand gets tired. Other bakers swear by a two-handed stretch method. Either way, the key is to know when to stop. The best rule of thumb I've heard is to keep kneading until the dough achieves the texture of your earlobe. Alternatively, when you poke the dough, it should be elastic enough to spring right back.

Then comes the proofing process. It's merely a waiting game in which you do nothing. Yet if you don't wait long enough, you can end up with a brick. Linda Haynes, founder of Toronto's popular ACE Bakery, advises that you let the dough perform its second rise until it doesn't bounce back when poked. The dough also needs to be covered so that the exterior doesn't dry out before baking.

Baking is another step that doesn't require any effort from you, yet it elicits a wide range of techniques and recommendations from bakers. Do you use a glass or aluminum loaf pan? Do you need a baguette pan? Do you prefer free-form loaves on a baking sheet? On unglazed tiles? Do you line the sheet with parchment? Do you dust it with flour, cornmeal or perhaps oil the surface? Do you spray the oven with a misting of cold water? Hot water? Or do you throw ice cubes onto the oven floor? What about a tray of water at the bottom? Do you spray in the center of the oven or only on the sides? How humid is it outdoors and how is it going to affect the amount of water you should mist into the oven? Do you glaze the top of the loaf with egg wash for a shiny sheen? Or do you slash the surface for visual effect? How hot should the oven be?

These are details that I gathered over the years from many, many sources, and I still haven't cultivated the ultimate bread recipe for myself. Anyone can make bread. At the same time, I admire and respect the hard-earned experience of professional bakers who must have practiced with many many loaves before getting to where they are now. If you have your own special tips or tricks, let me know!

For Peanut

Valentine's Day is an insidious holiday, even when you're conveniently partnered up with somebody as Feb 14 comes rolling around. Unrealistically heightened expectations of romance (= effort and $$$) and the unsolicited pity doled out to single people make me wonder if the transitory boost in flower and chocolate sales are worth the trouble. I've long held this cynicism, whether in or out of a relationship.

However, there is one love that is truly unconditional and eternal: my affection and empathy for animals, especially those who have been a part of my family. If I'm going to honor anyone on St. Valentine's Day, it should be them.

Feb 5 was the fourth anniversary of Peanut's death. Peanut was my first feline roommate. He graced me with his presence in the second half of his 16 years of life. A family had given him up for adoption at 8-years old, citing "allergies" as the reason. This was a cruel sentence, since older cats have very little chance of being adopted -- everybody squeals for kittens who steal the spotlight at every adoption event. However, I wanted an older cat as my first pet. They're house-trained, more mellow and mature, and less apt to get into silly mishaps. The day I brought Peanut home was one of the happiest days of my life. It was the culmination of a lifetime of pining for a pet.

Peanut was an old soul. He was extremely patient and giving towards everybody, including the new cats who came into our lives. Although his day-to-day routine was relatively free of drama, he would often let out a heavy sigh at the end of a day, as if to let me know he was carrying the burdens of the world. He loved to burrow under blankets and often stuck his head in my armpit or the crook of my arm at night. Peanut was also a gentleman: he never stepped on me or jumped onto tables or counter tops, unlike the other cats who have come into my care. He's the only cat I've met who spent a lot of time in front of mirrors: he was often seen admiring his reflection, turning his head this way and that to see himself at different angles. Every night, he would conduct lengthy monologues in front of a mirror, waking me up with his peculiar chatter. He exhibited an intense fear of rolled up newspapers, which led me to believe he may have been mistreated by his previous family.

It was 4:10am when the vet called me to hurry to the emergency clinic. Peanut had been in hospital for over a week, having endured two operations in an attempt to alleviate an intestinal blockage. Sadly, his body couldn't handle any more and was giving up: his kidneys started shutting down, he developed pancreatitis, his lungs began filling up with fluids and his digestive tract was painfully blocked. He had been lethargic, but suddenly got up with a gasp, widened his eyes and started pacing his cage. It was an alarming spike in pain, one that signified that he was near the end.

I'm glad I was given the opportunity to say goodbye on our own terms. But making the decision to let him go was, without a doubt, the most agonizing choice I ever had to make. I spoke to him and petted him softly as he went, hoping that his last moments were comfortable and peaceful.

Peanut's favorite foods were fish (especially tuna and salmon), cheese and peanut butter (I made this discovery long after naming him). I thought I should commemorate him with a recipe devised in his honor. First, I created a cat template by cutting some styrofoam -- the styrofoam trays that groceries use to pack meat and vegetables are great for this. I rolled out some puff pastry and traced out the cat shape twice. A round hole was cut out of the second piece. The pastry pieces were brushed with egg white and the piece with the hole was placed on top of the other. When the pastry puffed up in the oven (425°F for 15-20 min), it did so with a nice round indentation in the middle, which I scooped out to make the indentation even deeper.

I baked a salmon fillet in the oven until cooked through. I flaked the flesh then tossed it with grated cheese while still warm, to melt the cheese just a little. I chose marbled cheddar because Peanut was an orange/beige tabby. Then a few fronds of dill were mixed in for color. The mixture was spooned into the centre of the pastry.

My current feline roommates begged for me to share. I gave them some of the salmon and the cheese, hoping Peanut would be pleased with it as well.

New Year, New Resolution, New Approach

Happy new year everyone! "Everyone" will soon refer to a larger group of people, or so I hope: with great trepidation, I've decided to make this blog public. Which also makes this the appropriate opportunity for presenting a more thorough explanation of what this blog is about and what I'm trying to achieve with it.

A few summers ago, I attended the wedding of a childhood friend. We weren't related but he and his family were so integral to our family functions that he was like a cousin. Although adulthood sent us on separate paths, the wedding was a milestone that I could not miss, and it was an honor to be invited. It was a glorious, joyful day full of youthful promise and dreams of a bright future for the newlyweds.

Two weeks later he was dead, taken from us by a negligent driver who had fallen asleep at the wheel on the wrong side of the road.

My own sorrow was eclipsed by the heart-breaking grief that shattered his young bride -- widowed all too soon -- and his parents. I wanted to help, even as I knew perfectly well that nothing I could do or say would assuage their pain. Paralyzed with helplessness, I waffled for a while between one stupid idea and another.

So I just started cooking. I was cooking for people who wouldn't want to eat (never mind cook), but who should. I was cooking as a gesture of concern, empathy and affection. I wanted to bring them something comforting and accessible that would sustain them through this ordeal.

This is how the idea of self-publishing a cookbook was born. The intent is to build a volume of recipes that nourishes the heart as well as the stomach. I'm trying to emphasize good nutrition that elevates mood (instead of crashing it through junk, seductive as it is) while promoting overall health. I'm also taking cues from various cultural traditions that revolve around food during mourning: food may be offered for the grief-stricken at a wake, or prepared in a ritualistic and symbolic manner to memorialize the loss.

The notion of self-publishing came from one of my favorite foodie blogs, 101 Cookbooks. The author, Heidi Swanson, wrote a couple of posts about making one's own cookbook and that got me inspired.

I have no culinary cred, and don't plan on having a career in food. I don't pretend for a second that I'm a chef that anybody would want to emulate. But I do believe in this project for two reasons: (1) I want to keep the memory of my friend alive with this book, which will be dedicated to his family (they don't know about any of this yet), and (2) I plan to donate as much of the proceeds as I can afford to hunger relief organizations which serve up a far more important concept of "comfort food" every day.

This blog is a day-to-day journal of my culinary experiences and experiments. It's also a testing ground for my articles and recipes for the book. The photographs posted here are my own, but eventually I will recruit my co-contributor, Lynn -- an accomplished photographer and talented chef -- for her expertise. My current target for publication is end of 2009. Perhaps with an audience, I'll be rescued from my tendency to procrastinate.

Last but not least, I want to hear from you, about your comforting memories of food. Tell me about the dishes that mended your wounds or have healed others. It's a gift that's worth sharing.

Comfort in a Jar

"Worries go down better with soup." - Jewish proverb -

People often complain of boredom when their days are uneventful, but it is the lucky individual who has no occasion to suffer the pitfalls of life.

My weekend started joyfully, with the arrival of my brother who took a long train ride to visit me. Among other things, we went to a rambunctious pierogi-making party hosted by my huggable friend, Gila. If you want to know how pierogi-making can ever be rambunctious, factor in over a dozen boisterous individuals, at least a few hundred pierogi wrappers, dozens of traditional and questionable choices of filling (the more absurd filling ideas having come about after considerable consumption of alcohol), and flour-dusted hands deliberately finding their way onto dark clothing. It was a major gaffe on my part to forget to bring my camera. I brought home some mystery pierogis at least, and will photograph and write about them when they get cooked.

Then came the wrenching news about my brother's beloved cat, who is in a veterinary hospital as I write this, fighting for his life. I won't get into details because it's none of my business to be writing about it here, but there were many long hours that felt like days during which some painful decisions had to be made. It brought back memories of my first cat, Peanut, who passed away a few years ago. I loved him more than anything or anyone in the world. Just writing about this makes me weep even today, so it's not a stretch for me to understand what my brother is going through right now.

Just before the weekend, my very dear friend and co-contributor here, Lynn, had given me a jar of her homemade cream of mushroom soup. I don't know precisely what went into it, but if I know her at all, she would have applied the principle of simplicity: fresh, simple ingredients -- nothing artificial -- that are long on aroma and flavor. The soup was the first thing my brother and I ate after the bad news. It was comfort in a jar. The canned variety often feels too heavy and loaded with preservatives. Lynn's soup was light but captured the essence of mushrooms. It was just what we needed.

Good Things Come in Small Packages

Apologies for the long absence of new posts. I've been back from Barcelona for nearly two weeks already, but my time at work has been monopolized by the inevitable game of catch-up and overtime. And right now, my cats are not making this any easier by parading between me and my laptop and licking my face and fingers.

Another deterrent was the fact that I had ambitious plans for this first post upon my return -- ambitions that weren't matched by my energy level or mental capacity. Winter has descended upon us and this season has a way of sucking the life out of me.

But I digress. The trip to Barcelona assured me that the architectural splendor of the city has remained intact over the past decade and bold plans are already underway to further transform the landscape. Its coastline and natural charms are as beautiful as ever -- what Canuck wouldn't get deliriously giddy at the sight of palm trees in a busy, metropolitan centre? We were given ample opportunity to wine and dine until ready to burst. The conference hotel rooms were equipped with bathroom scales which the women promptly utilized to depress or reassure themselves about their rate of consumption. My scale was conveniently broken and lied to me about my weight, which suited me just fine.

Regrettably, some foul first-hand experiences with crime as well as second-hand reports of incidents from colleagues left a bitter aftertaste. It threatened to spoil the entire experience for me and now I'm not so sure I would want to go back there a third time.

Which would be a real shame given that the sins of the few shouldn't damn everybody or everything.

Spanish tapas is something that I already miss a great deal. Tapas isn't so much a style of cuisine as it is an approach to eating that differs from the regimented meal schedule that North Americans are programmed to follow. For one thing, Spaniards eat later in the day, having lunch between 1:00-4:00pm and dinner between 9:00pm-12:00am. The lateness of the last meal encourages a reduction in portion size -- going to bed with a full belly is as uncomfortable as it is unhealthy. This is in stark contrast to the massive production that is usually "dinner" in North America.

The word "tapas" originates from "tapar", which means "to cover" in Spanish. (Spanish-speakers, please correct me immediately if I'm talking out of my ass.) The consumption of tapas is inextricably linked to the imbibing of alcohol. In my research, I've consistently come across two stories about the origin of tapas: (1) the practice was decreed in the 13th century by King Alfonso X of Castile (aka Alfonso the Wise) who credited his recovery from an illness to a diet of small portions and wine; consequently, wine could no longer be served anywhere in the land without a bite of food, and (2) it became customary to cover a glass of wine with a slice of bread or cheese, either to keep out offending contaminants like sand or bugs, or to hold in the funky smell of bad wine. While I like anyone who advocates drinking wine, I think I prefer the second explanation. El mundo de las Tapas has a much more detailed history of tapas (and recipes!) for anyone interested in reading further.

Catalan food is typified by marvelous variations of Iberian pork -- cooked, cured, dried -- and delicious seafood. Oddly enough, guidebooks state that the seafood sold in Barcelona is mostly imported despite local fisheries along the Catalan coast. I couldn't tell, judging from the superb hake, cod, squid and anchovies I sampled. Paella, of course, was a dietary requirement for me while I was there. It was always moist, flavorful and crammed with monstrously huge prawns, chorizo, saffron and other goodies.

Spaniards don't have a patent on the idea of serving several small dishes instead of one heavy meal. The Chinese have dim sum (I'm planning to take a dim sum cooking course next year!). Greeks, Cypriots, Turks, Lebanese, Albanians, Serbians and Bulgarians have meze or mezze. Filipinos have pica-pica and coincidentally, even a cured beef dish called tapa. Japanese kaiseki cuisine has a tapas-like structure, consisting of an array of small dishes; Japanese pottery is resplendent with gorgeous, tiny plates designed specifically for this.

And why shouldn't this be a global phenomenon? Eating lots of small dishes throughout the day is accepted by many as a healthier alternative to overloading on food three times a day. I think smaller portions also force you to stop and taste what you're putting in your mouth. You can't just scarf it down. Like a Fabergé egg, there's something precious and charming about a small thing that still requires as much effort and skill to prepare as something bigger.

My friend Ireen has taken beautiful photographs of the food we had in Barcelona. She's a far more skilled photographer than I am, so hopefully she'll either post them publicly or let me post a few here for your enjoyment. I'll keep you posted.

Mother Knows Best

It's my mother's birthday, so I'd like to commemorate the occasion by posting about some of her cooking. After all, I think mothers (and some fathers) are the primary influence on people's food preferences and habits. It's plenty obvious that I have a predilection for Japanese cuisine which stems from growing up under my parents' roof.

Mom and Dad recently made an excursion out to Angel Seafoods Ltd., a Japanese food warehouse/market in the Saint-Laurent area of Montreal. Mom picked up a shiny red snapper, already neatly gutted and scaled. She salted it, skewered it from tail to head -- like sticking a rod up a puppet's butt -- then baked the whole thing in the oven at 350°F for about 30 minutes. To prevent burning, she covered the tail and fin with foil.

Salt crust roasting is an ancient technique used across different cultures. Salt, as I've mentioned before, has a way of drawing out moisture from flesh. However, salt crust roasting creates a barrier that locks in the moisture that the salt crust draws out, causing the flesh to steam inside.

Of course, instead of remarking on such intelligent details, I made a facetious remark about Mr. Snapper's teeth looking somewhat scary and comical at the same time. (Come on, you can't tell me this guy doesn't look like Admiral Ackbar from Return of the Jedi with piranha dentures?!)

My mother promptly replied that traditional Japanese cooking dictates that you should tie the fish's mouth shut with twine to prevent it from opening during baking. Presumably, this is to keep moisture from escaping from the mouth. I did some Googling and found that some people also sew the gills shut for roasting. Who knew? Mom knew.

I leave you with a photo of one of her New Year's feasts which she spends almost a week preparing for at the end of every December. This isn't even the full meal: these are the remnants (neatly re-arranged) after the family has devoured a number of dishes. Eventually, I'd like to accumulate enough understanding of these foods to be able to make something like this without consulting a book. My mother has all of these recipes in her head. Now that's skill.

Happy birthday, Mom!

Feast on Film

As I await the ground-shaking results of the U.S. elections -- it's looking very promising already -- my mind has drifted to thoughts of food in film. No, there is no logical association there. My mind is simply full of food and film pretty much all the time.

I'm not sure how much interest this topic will generate since my earlier posting on food in music elicited no comment. However, this is my blog, so what the hell.

I can only think of six films that embody the passion and sensory thrills of cooking. Until the day someone invents smell-o-vision TVs and cinemas, movies are dependent on visual and auditory stimuli to convey smells, textures and flavors. My six pix picks not only make my mouth water, but they fill me with a desire to run into the kitchen and start cooking a feast.

The indie movie, "Big Night" (1996), co-directed by actors Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott, is one of the most charming, joyous celebrations of food. The title refers to a climactic banquet that is supposed to save a tiny Italian restaurant from bankruptcy. The aptly named brothers -- Primo and Secondo -- are the proprietors of the establishment. Although both of them cook, Secondo knows very well that Primo is the one blessed with talent and he will go to any lengths to defend his brother's gift. The third act of the film is the big night itself: the ambitious and over-the-top dinner prepared with every ounce of zeal and desperation that the brothers can muster. I won't spoil the ending for anyone who has yet to see it -- go see it, you fool! -- but the quiet final scene with nary a word uttered for five minutes is one of the most deeply poignant endings in cinema.

Here is but a snippet from the grand banquet in "Big Night":



"Babette's Feast" (1987) from Denmark also centers on a sumptuous meal. However, this feast is a gesture of immeasurable gratitude for a humble but extraordinary act of kindness. In a small, remote village in 19th century Denmark, a pastor and his two beautiful daughters spread their faith. Out of a sense of duty to their father, the daughters forsake their hearts' desires and opt for a pious life by his side. Decades later, long after their father has passed, the aging sisters are sought out by a French woman fleeing the post-revolutionary bloodshed in the streets of Paris. The stranger, Babette, offers to be their housekeeper, even without pay -- anything for asylum. And so, Babette serves the sisters dutifully for fourteen years until, one day, she receives notice that she has won a lottery in Paris. Babette offers to cook a feast for the sisters and the late pastor's followers, presumably before returning to France. What transpires is a stirring, unforgettable meal for all, seasoned with a twist from Babette. In the last scene she utters, "an artist is never poor": an eloquent statement of conviction that cooking is truly an art.

On the polar opposite of the spectrum, you have "Tampopo" (1985). This is a zany collage of vignettes about food peppered across a silly central plot about a ramen shop trying to concoct the ultimate noodle. Through the comedy emerges a theme about how food permeates every corner of our existence, from a mother's breast to the last meal, in class divisions and domestic order, in public and in the bedroom. It's hard to single out the funniest scene from the movie. There's the side-splitting French restaurant scene in which director Juzo Itami pokes fun at the fronts old Japanese farts will put on in order to hide their ignorance and save face. Less funny, but more mouth-watering is the scene in which a homeless man with obvious culinary talent shows our heroine's son how to make the perfect omurice, i.e. omelette + rice. But I will be remiss if I don't post the opening clip in which noodle-eating is discussed with Zen-like earnestness:



Also from Asia, Ang Lee's "Eat Drink Man Woman" (1994) swings in yet another direction. Food here becomes a symbol of love and family. Master chef Chu is widowed and has three adult daughters. With age, Chu has begun to lose his sense of taste as well as his hold on his daughters. The weekly ritual of cooking an elaborate dinner for his family falls apart as the daughters run off to pursue their own lives. That the unlikeliest daughter becomes the one to pick up the torch and displays the same culinary gift is a touching affirmation of the bond between father and daughter. The stunning opening scene in which Chef Chu prepares one of his Sunday dinners took over a week to shoot. You can see why:



It goes without saying that "Ratatouille" (2007) has won my heart. I've mentioned it before and here I'm mentioning it again. The film has its flaws, but the primary theme of "anyone can cook" is a lovely one. I won't bother describing it here because it has received such tremendous exposure in the Western world. However, I will single out the speech by Anton Ego near the end of the movie. Ego is the acid-tongued restaurant critic who can make or break a chef's career. When his haughty arrogance crumbles at the discovery of Remy, the rat chef, it leads him to this powerful soul-searching narrative:



I won't lie to you. That speech makes me cry every time.

Last but not least, "The Scent of Green Papaya" (1993) deserves honorable mention. It's not a foodie movie, per se, but its slow, lingering moments revolving around food are imbued with a sensuality that is hard to describe with words. Film critic Roger Ebert called it "a poem for the eyes". There is little to it in terms of story, but it's like watching a moving painting with moments of exquisite beauty and poetry. Mui, a little Vietnamese servant girl, is at the heart of the film. She glows with an innate goodness and purity. She is not naive, but she dislays no judgement -- only curiosity and affection -- for everything and everyone around her. She grows up and falls in love, which pretty much sums up the "plot". Plot doesn't matter when you can drink in the details in scenes such as this one: