ONE Pumpkin, Ah Ah Ah!!!

Continuing my new tradition started last year after buying my first house, I carved a Jack O'Lantern for Halloween. This year, I chose to sculpt Count von Count, the beloved arithmomanic vampire from Sesame Street.

I wanted to carve either a zombie or a vampire since both creatures are big in entertainment these days. However, a zombie on a pumpkin just looks like a person with a bad skin condition -- if you think about it, zombies look like the undead because of the shades of grey (dead flesh) and blood on their faces, neither of which are colors that can be reproduced on a pumpkin -- so I went with the vampire idea.

I thought I was saving myself some time this year by choosing a muppet instead of a human subject, but it took me just as long as last year's carving of Jack from "The Shining". Chiseling the monocle was especially difficult! Anyway, I think the end result is not bad. If you were a kid trolling for candy, would this lantern entice you to my house?

Heston!

I've been starved for chef Heston Blumenthal's presence on TV since the end of his last BBC series, "In Search of Perfection". Imagine my excitement when I saw that Blumenthal is returning to the Food Network Canada tomorrow night with a new program, "Big Chef Takes on Little Chef".

At first, I thought the show looked like a copy of Gordon Ramsay's "Kitchen Nightmares" but it's quite distinct in its format. Instead of revamping a different restaurant every week, Blumenthal will be trying to revitalize a dwindling chain of roadside diners in the UK called Little Chef. I suppose the Canadian equivalent would be rescuing Tim Horton's if it had gone into decline. Little Chef was a childhood favorite of Blumenthal's. In its heyday it was ubiquitous and well known among the the Brits; today it is disappearing into obscurity and its cuisine has much left to be desired. See here the intro to the new series, in which Blumenthal samples the latest that Little Chef has to offer:

Big Chef takes on Little Chef from Neil Pollock on Vimeo.

In the Night Kitchen

Some might argue that I have never really grown up, but I certainly regressed further this past weekend upon seeing Where the Wild Things Are -- the big screen, live action adaptation of the beloved 1963 children's book by Maurice Sendak. It instantly brought back fond memories and a feeling of wonderment.

Since this is a cooking blog, it seems appropriate to flash back to Sendak's "In the Night Kitchen" (1970):

Paralyzed By Choices

I recently left a job that I had held for 4.5 years. To my great astonishment, my colleagues presented me with a gift certificate for Williams-Sonoma as a parting gift. Everybody knows how much I like to cook and eat, so it was apparently the most obvious choice.

In these lean economic times, gift certificates are much appreciated. Trouble is, I become paralyzed by the number of options available to me in spending it. Do you buy a whole bunch of little things, or do you put it towards the cost of a single, expensive item? Do you get something you really need or do you get something frivolous that you would never have bought on your own dime?

My initial thought was that I'd like a meat grinder. I don't mean the electric kind, but a really old-fashioned, hand-cranked grinder (see the squeaky, unattractive grinding process in the video below). Not very sexy, but I find that I can't always get my hands on the ground meats I want. If I can grind my own poultry, or make a mixed grind, that would save me a lot of trouble.



Sadly, Williams-Sonoma only has the electric kind and they ain't cheap.

So what do I do with $80 CAD? Pretty much anything would make me happy because kitchen gadgets to me are like toys to a toddler. One caveat: I can't get any large, hefty gear because my kitchen is tiny and I am all out of storage/counter space. I'd like to hear YOUR ideas.

What the World Eats

Time magazine has published a thought-provoking photo essay titled, "What the World Eats". It is an excerpt from a book called "Hungry Planet" by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio. Each photograph depicts a family along with the foods they have consumed in one week.

The Ukita family from Kodaira City, Japan (shown above) spends around $317.25 USD eating a lot of fish, but also a lot of processed, packaged, or instant foods. In sharp contrast, the Aboubakar family from Darfur spends a paltry $1.23 USD in a refugee camp in Chad to feed six. The Revis family from North Carolina goes through a stunning $341.98 USD on one week, predictably on a lot of junk food. Probably the most wholesome-looking diet is maintained by the Namgay family of Shingkhey Village, Bhutan: for $5.03, this family of 13 feeds on a generous amount of vegetables, grains, some fruit and a very modest amount of meat. Not a bottle of pop or bag of potato chips in sight.

There's no judgment here -- this is just how things are in different parts of the world. I think the closer people are to the earth and the animals they eat, the less they need to spend on packaged food and groceries in general. I also find the photo essay endearing in its list of family favorites. The Polish family's favorite is pig's knuckles with root vegetables. Mutton seems to be a favorite in Egypt and Mongolia. Coca Cola seems to be the universal favorite among soda drinkers (except for the Italians); as a Pepsi-hater, I approve! It makes me laugh to see Kellogg brand cereal among the staples of the families from Kuwait and Italy.

When I first moved out on my own, I made a third of what I do today. I was extremely frugal and also very health-conscious, having lost a quarter of my body weight through rigorous exercise and calorie management. I learned very quickly that meat and packaged foods are the fastest way to blow a budget; fresh produce gives the most bang for the buck. I did my $40 CAD groceries once every 2 weeks and rarely ate out. I have no memories of feeling deprived or limited in any way.

It is said that people who make more spend more, and I have to concede that it's true. $40 is now my minimum weekly food budget, not including birthday dinners and parties which can average $40-80 per head.

For sustainability and ethical farming reasons, I'm starting to go back to my frugal ways. I treat meat and animal products as a luxury and buy no more than one cut of meat per week for myself. Two if I'm cooking for someone else. At that rate, it is possible (and sensible) to expend the extra dollars on ethically and organically raised meat. I load up on fruits and vegetables weekly, if not twice a week. The weekly farmer's market held next door to my office is now part of my regular ritual. I have the occasional weakness for wine or Diet Coke, but I don't bring junk food into my home and toss out all take-out flyers for recycling.

What do you do to spend less for better health (yours and the environment's)?

A Meal for a Song

One Ring Zero, a quirky pop band from New York, have asked their favorite chefs for recipes then turned those recipes into songs. "The Recipe Project" includes recipes... er, lyrics by Iron Chefs such as Mario Batali and Michael Symon as well as Chris Cosentino (often seen on the Food Network). You can listen to some samples here. The ingredient recitations alone are hilarious.

Band member Michael Hearst also has a solo project called "Songs for Ice Cream Trucks". The album is a sugary, twinkling confection that will give you an ice cream craving and a cavity. If you have kids or if you are a kid, you'll love it. Give it a listen.

Christmas in July

There's a lovely song by The 6ths called "Winter in July" and I'm going to invoke the same idea here by talking about Xmas five months too early. In December 2008, I talked about chef Heston Blumenthal's TV special called "The Perfect Christmas". At the time, all I could offer to you was a teaser trailer. Well, someone has since posted the entire episode online so now you can witness for yourself why I was swooning after watching it last winter.

Gimme Kimchi

You know the second half of "Cannibal Ferox" in which the cannibal tribe of the Amazon exacts their terrible, sadistic, gory revenge on the white men and women who enslaved and murdered their people? No? Doesn't matter, as long as you understand that my week at work has been worse than that.

Which means I haven't had much opportunity to cook this week. However, I have tried to stay in touch with my passions: watching some Food Network and also catching an episode of Gourmet magazine's Diary of a Foodie. This time it was an episode titled "Korea: Ancient Food, Modern World". (Click on the link to watch the whole episode online.)

I thoroughly enjoy Korean cuisine, but I've never been instructed on the differences between Northern and Southern dishes, nor have I heard of Korean royal court cuisine (vaguely similar to Japanese kaiseki cuisine) before seeing this program. Last but not least, I had no idea that there was so much more to kimchi than just Chinese cabbage and red chili paste. Did you know that there are 187 recognized varieties of kimchi? Watch Inja Yoo -- a certified royal court chef -- prepare some extraordinary dishes, including bossam kimchi, which is a gorgeous stuffed/rolled cabbage filled with seafood.

Street Gourmand

The people of LA -- you are lucky, lucky bastards. For a long time now I've been reading about Kogi, the fusion cuisine on wheels that has taken the city by storm. Its founder Mark Manguera and chef Roy Choi have blended the best of Mexican and Korean food (I dare you to go look at their Korean Short Rib Tacos or Kogi Kabezza without drooling) and serve it up as street eats. That alone is a tasty idea, but in a stroke of marketing brilliance, they chose to use online technology (Twitter) to let people know where their two trucks -- Roja and Verde -- are parked on a given night. The "Where's Waldo" elusiveness combined with exceptional cooking and social networking has made Kogi a local phenomenon.



Chef Roy is open to experimentation, it seems, much to the delight of Angelenos. Take a look at his Specials. His Pork Belly with Lychee makes me crazy with hunger and yearning. The Venice Beach Vegan Black Sesame Seed Jelly Special was Roy's response to a vegan challenge -- it uses fermented soybeans which many of you know I adore. And as if to taunt my love for good molé sauce, Kogi served up the Spicy Korean Chicken Molé Special last winter. Fuels the imagination, doesn't it?

I would love to do something like this in Toronto if I had the resources or capability. Perchance to dream...

Foodie Friends

If the company you keep says a lot about you, then I sure hope my friend who goes by the handle Wordsmith on Open Salon is a good reflection of me. She's amazing at everything that I can only dream of doing marginally well. As far as food is concerned, she has a refined palate, she cooks brilliantly, and surpasses most of the foodies in my circle in that she has also been a restauranteur.

So it came as no surprise that her recent blog entry featured a dessert recipe that made my mouth water. Just imagine the smells and flavors of her Apple-Berry Cobbler as it comes out of the oven...

Lady Biscotti

I have some Italian friends, all of whom can make excellent, authentic biscotti that would have made their Roman forebears very proud. So I mean no offense to them when I say that the best biscotti I have ever had is made by a Serbian-Australian -- my good friend Lynn.

These are her signature cookies, and I literally dream about them, which says a lot because I don't really ever crave cookies. Even the crumbs are great -- for sprinkling on yogurt or fruit -- and she humors my request to save all the cookie crumbs left on her baking sheets after she has stored away the latest batch of biscotti.

The sliver of chocolate/cocoa in the middle, the crushed pistachio nuts, and the crumbly texture are a perfect complement to a freshly brewed cup of coffee. I am currently rationing the latest stack that I was given, even though the temptation to scarf them down is overwhelming.

"Lady Biscotti" is the handle Lynn was given by a friend of hers, who left an improvised ditty on her answering machine one day, singing the virtues of her very special cookie. If you had one, you'll understand.

Pan de Higo

In this period of economic downturn, I've opted to be frugal. Strangely, this has made me an object of ridicule, to which I can only respond by saying that saving a little here and there adds up fairly quickly. I would rather have a nest egg at the ready for dire emergencies than be stripped of choices because I don't have the cash for it.

However, I did allow myself a tiny splurge recently. I spent some pocket change on a block of Pan de Higo ("fig bread", sometimes referred to in English as a fig cake) and a slender wedge of Tronchón cheese. Both originate from Spain.

The fig cake is a traditional way of preserving figs for the winter months. It involves mincing and compressing dried figs into a mold. Often, Marcona almonds -- also from Spain -- are mixed in, along with spices and/or honey.

The Tronchón is a semi-soft cheese made from the milk of different animals. The wedge I purchased was made from cow's milk, goat's milk and sheep's milk. It has the texture and color of Mozzarella.

The store had a sign beside the fig cake that strongly recommended its consumption with Spanish cheeses. Given that I already had the Tronchón in my shopping basket, it seemed like fate.

One thing I have learned about my palate is that it very quickly diminishes in its capacity to taste a certain flavor after two or more bites of the same thing. Contrasting textures and flavors keep my taste buds active and alert. So it made perfect sense to alternate between bites of fig cake and then allowing pieces of the cheese to melt in my mouth.

It was also delightful to see that something as ridiculously simple as fig cake could be so delicious. I wonder if other fruits can be compressed this way. It lights up the imagination.

Monster Pit

My favorite neighborhood grocery is offering a bumper crop of California avocados now. They had a nice color to them and serious heft, so I bought a few.

When the flesh had ripened, I excitedly cut into one of them. Considering how soft the fruit was, there was a surprising amount of resistance against the knife I was cutting it with.

You can see why.

The pit was monstrously huge -- the size of my fist. It was also heavy. If I beaned someone in the head with it, it would probably put them in a coma.

I feel a bit cheated. I paid more for the pit than the flesh, tasty as it was. It's the pits.

Little Beauty

It's been a busy week, and as a result, a big bundle of Chinese broccoli (or kai-lan) was left to languish in my vegetable crisper. When I finally got around to cooking them, I discovered that one of the florets had actually blossomed into lovely little flowers. So tiny and fragile, they were begging to be saved. So I separated the flower head from the stem and set it in a shallow pool of water. After a day, the other buds started to bloom as well. Even my cats took a liking to it.

The Food Cooks You

This past Xmas, my overly generous parents spoiled me with some gift certificates for Amazon. I'm sure that I'm not alone in my triple addiction to movies, music and books. So, the exuberant thrill of receiving that ubiquitous Amazon box must also be a fairly universal experience. My cats share my excitement, albeit in a "box hab" (CuteOverload slang for "box rehabilitation") sort of way. All cat owners know about their pets' amusing fondness for cardboard boxes, an instinctual remnant of their wild ancestors who felt safest living in burrows.

My Amazon wishlist never seems to get shorter, partly because of the abundance of mouth-watering cookbooks that smart publishers have been cranking out year-round. At the top of my list are Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's "River Cottage" series of books. I've mentioned him before and the River Cottage URL has always been in my list of favorite links.

The very first time I learned of Whittingstall was when I was channel-surfing and came across an episode of one of his TV shows. In the program, he tried to convince junk-eating, bargain-shopper city dwellers that locally-grown organic produce and contented livestock were well worth the few extra quid for the improvements in taste, health-factor, sustainability, and ethical responsibility. I liked his gentle demeanor and unwavering conviction, even as he was demonstrating the slaughter of his own livestock. Now that's a tough sell, especially to the faint-hearted who have never stopped to think that the baby back ribs that they so love to eat come from adorable creatures who look like "Babe". But his arguments were well-grounded and certainly made a believer out of me.

The same conviction comes through in the books I ordered: "The River Cottage Cookbook" and "The River Cottage Meat Book". Within seconds of opening the "Meat Book", I was thoroughly absorbed by the opening chapters on his decision to raise and eat his own livestock. It will never turn around a die-hard vegetarian or vegan who thinks it's absolutely wrong to be eating animals. But it will give meat-eaters a deeper awareness of how much power and responsibility they hold in driving the market towards free-range, organically raised livestock. As long as people keep buying the cheap stuff, the market will continue to sustain inhumane, industrial forms of animal farming.

However, the books are not all rhetoric. There are plenty of gorgeous recipes inside. I like them for their rustic simplicity. You won't find any pretentious haute cuisine in here; just good home cooking. I'm a little intimidated by the recipes for headcheese -- it will be very freaky to bring home a whole pig's head from the butcher's. I'm not sure I would even know where or how to start carving. But I hope to try it some day.

Another item I ordered was the DVD of "How to Cook Your Life". I hadn't seen it before; I bought it solely on the strength of director Doris Dörrie, whose "Enlightenment Guaranteed" is one of my most favorite indie films, about a pair of German brothers seeking Zen in Japan. "How to Cook Your Life" is a documentary about Zen priest and chef, Edward Espe Brown from the Tassajara Mountain Centre in California. Brown has been cooking food at the monastery for over 40 years and has published a seminal book on bread baking called, "The Tassajara Bread Book".

This film isn't about cooking or recipes, per se. It's about approaching food with the same kind of mindfulness that Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall endorses at the River Cottage. One of the Zen practitioners at the monastery says, "We're cooking the food, but in terms of practice, the food is cooking us." In other words, the act of cooking teaches many life lessons such as patience, awareness, adaptability, generosity, and so on.

The film may not hold interest for a general audience, who I suspect will find it too slow. To someone who thinks and feels profoundly about food, this is a calm meditation on our daily bread.

What's Cooking?

I am rapidly becoming a devotee of Saveur magazine. Their latest issue celebrates the home cook and the delectable meals from the hearth that sustain each of us day after day. A lot of gourmet and cooking magazines seem to take for granted that the majority of food aficionados aren't necessarily professionally trained or within arm's reach of expensive or exotic resources. So it's gratifying to see this icon of epicurean taste give recognition to the people who transform the mundane into the memorable on a budget in addition to (and in spite of) their busy lives.

"Cooking from the Heart" is at the top of their list of 100 things that make home cooks great, and I couldn't agree more. Even something as simple as a grilled cheese sandwich is soulful when made with feeling. It's a tenet that I believe in and one that is at the core of my cookbook.

Playing With Food for Halloween

This year's Halloween will be the first one I'll be spending at a home to call my own. I considered turning off all the lights and either hiding out in the back of the house or making plans to go out in order to avoid marauding, candy-intoxicated kids.

However, I've been trying to connect with my anti-social neighbors since moving in. Given that almost every household on the street has kids, it seems opportune to stay home and chat with the costumed children and their parents as I hand out the treats.

To do this, I need to put a hint outside the house to indicate that my place is open for business. Dollar stores are abundant with cheap decorations (already on sale since Labor Day). Yet I abhor the idea of cluttering my closets with useless junk afterwards, especially since I've been trying so hard these last few years to streamline my possessions.

And so, I came to the ambitious conclusion that I would carve a pumpkin. I didn't want to do a boring Jack O'Lantern with triangle eyes, nose and chunky block teeth. For a while I was hung up on the idea of carving the creepy dead boy from "The Grudge" (or 呪怨) since it's Japanese and definitely eerie. But if you've never seen the movie, I suppose a sullen-looking kid on a pumpkin won't make any sense.

After much deliberation, I finally opted to carve Jack Torrance from Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining". The scene in which Jack (played by Jack Nicholson) tears through the bathroom door with an axe and maniacally growls, "Heeere's Johnny!", is iconic. For those of us old enough to have seen the movie, it is definitely more scary than any mummy, goblin or witch.

It took around 6 hours to carve, using sculpting tools. I was worried that it wasn't going to turn out right because it doesn't look the same without a light inside the pumpkin. However, I think the results were successful... what do you think?

Obscene Vegetables

I seem to have a knack for picking up batches of vegetables that include mutants. Especially mutants that remind me of something obscene. Or is my mind obscene and I'm just projecting my thoughts onto these little freaks of nature?

Step One: Cleaning

This isn't a medieval torture chamber. It's the interior of the stove I inherited from my house's previous owners. This photo doesn't do justice to the level of grime and corrosion I found inside. The bottom drawer is even worse: I found filthy roasting pans and rotting pieces of food.

It's been just over a month since I moved in, and I've scrubbed, mopped, rinsed, scraped and disinfected almost every corner of this house. I've plucked out dessicated bug carcasses from the inside of my door chime. I've fished out clumps of hair from the bath drain. I've even washed a garbage can that reeked of rotting meat. But I've yet to work up the nerve to tackle the oven.

I hate cleaning ovens. Correction: I really hate cleaning ovens. Which is crippling for me as a foodie because I haven't been able to bake, roast or broil anything since moving in. There is something truly revolting about a cleaning task that requires getting down on your knees and sticking your head into the contaminated space. And let's not forget the toxicity of the oven cleaner and its nasty fumes. Anything that needs that kind of cleaning power is not something you want to get close to.

This is proving to be a serious test of my passion for cooking. Can it overcome my absolute dread of cleaning the oven?

Well obviously it's going to have to. I'm determined to finish my cookbook.