A Rebuttal to Living on the Hundred Mile Diet

A recent article in The Tyee, “Living on the Hundred Mile Diet”, set me thinking once again about where the food I eat comes from.

In Gary Paul Nabhan’s book, Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods, he recounts his own attempt to eat four out of five things from within a 400km (250 mile) radius of his home in Arizona for the period of one year. He dubbed this radius his food shed, and he was mostly successful in his quest although he made many compromises based more on politics than practicality. Nabhan describes in detail the politics of food including the ecological cost of food production. The book is a worthwhile read if one is interested in the geopolitics of food and I heartily recommend it.

On one level, I strongly support the spirit of Smith and MacKinnon’s position; I particularly empathize with their comment about flavorless fruit and vegetables sold out of season.

However, noble though their motives are, I cannot support the overall idea that we ought to only eat from our local food shed.

Their contention of “fossil fuels bad” begs the question of how they got to the strawberry fields to begin with. Did they drive or take public transit? Both methods require fossil fuels. I know this is a straw man argument, but I could not let it pass. Furthermore, immigrants to BC imported grain and sugar – if one does not want to eat sugar for political reasons, that’s one thing, but to exclude it simply due to an arbitrary map line strikes me as impractical. Ditto the flour and grains.

What about coffee? Chocolate? Vanilla? Olive oil? Not in BC. How about citrus fruits? In winter, lemons, limes, oranges, mandarins, grapefruit and others are as close as most of us in Vancouver will come to fresh seasonal fruit.

Another issue is cost. Food, good fresh local seasonal and well raised and bred, should be easily accessible to everyone. In North America, people seem to have a love affair with over processed and over packaged ready to eat food. In no small part this is the result of good marketing and cheap prices; eating a healthy diet requires a lot of attention to ingredient lists and access to a healthy food budget; therein lays the core of the problem. Smith and MacKinnon may have the means to pay $11/kg for local honey, but with the average family income in the $50K range, that’s a hard sell for most people.

I try to support local farmers as much as I can: I do most of my fruit and vegetable shopping at the farmer’s market between Victoria Day and Thanksgiving; I buy free range beef, pork, and lamb from farmers in bulk – the joy of the large freezer in the garage.

Ideally I’d buy nothing but adjectival (free-range organic shade grown pesticide free unmedicated additive free non-genetically modified) food products. Like most people however, I have a finite budget with which to feed my family; I also only have so much capacity for research to check all the sources of my food. I already spend what some people would consider an inordinate amount of time cooking and baking, preserving, canning, and freezing. There is a limit to what one person can do.

This is in no small part why I am a member of the Slow Food movement. I joined because I think food is undervalued – not in terms of price, although there are arguments to be made there – but in terms of health and wellbeing and our connection to the farmers who keep us fed. The big grocery chains now carry a majority of pre-packaged pre-prepared processed food; or, as a friend of mine quipped, the now carry food over ingredients.

What we really need is not to limit our food shed, but rather follow Slow Food’s position of eco-gastronomy – choosing and eating foods that are the product of sustainable agriculture, whether organic or conventional. We need not deprive ourselves of foods simply because they come from afar.

Kudos to the Canadian Parliament

I don't usually wax poetic over politics per se, but on the eve of Canada Day on the 1st of July, the federal government has passed a bill allowing same sex marriage. Kudos to those MP's who voted in favour of the legislation allowing same sex marriage.

Today, I am proud of my government.

A Beach Full of Shells

I enjoy a variety of music, but as I've been getting older, less and less of the commercial "top 40" stuff appeals to me as it did when I was in my teens and twenties. I expect I'm not alone in this; after all, my parents didn't exactly thrill to my playing Iron Maiden, AC/DC, and Judas Priest.

I don't listen to those three groups anymore, although there are a few songs from them I'd happily have on my iPod.

I listen to more complex music these days. For instance, yesterday in my mailbox Amazon.ca had kindly left me the newest album by Al Stewart, "A Beach Full of Shells". I’ve already put it on my iPod and have had the chance to give it a full listen. So far, I’m very impressed.

I've had the pleasure of seeing Al Stewart live on three occasions: in 1984 at the Royal Theatre in Victoria (the then new album was "Russians & Americans"); in 1989 at the Forge in Victora (for "Last Days of the Century"); and in 2002 over the Labour Day weekend at the Three Rivers Winery in Walla Walla, Washington.

This last concert was part of the Three Rivers Winery “Music on the Lawn” series of concerts; these concerts are fundraisers for the orchestra. The ticket price included dinner, which was a lovely basket full of food including delicious steak sandwiches. Wine was of course available from the winery to accompany your meal.

Walla Walla is home of the oldest symphony orchestra in the US west of the Mississippi River. The conductor of said orchestra and a long time friend of Al, persuaded him to combine his love of French wine and musical talents and the album “Down in the Cellar” was the result. The idea was to have a wine and music concert tour in Washington, Oregon and California, but the Miramar records in the US went bankrupt right at CD release time. Oops. Too bad, it might have been the “Sideways” of its day.

Reviewing Rubina's Replacement Red Fort

Runbina Tandoori was one of the best Indian places in Vancouver - it was my default place to go whenever my palate leaned that way; however the owner retired at the end of March this year. We managed to get one last take out meal from there with our usual selection of dishes: chicken Makhani (aka butter chicken); naan bread; lamb Rogan Josh; saag panir; and some rice dish, (___ pulao) with generous amounts of saffron and dried fruit.

However, some new folks took over Rubina's location and have an Indian restaurant newly dubbed Red Fort. From the interior decor, very little has changed and even the large chalkboard drawing inside the main door mentioning a late night chai and dessert for a prix fixe has remained. One must conclude then that this was a nice straight takeover.

With the in-laws visiting, we thought we'd try them out; take out was just easier, so that's what we did.

The order was almost identical to the final Rubina meal: chicken Makhani; naan bread; lamb Rogan Josh; saag panir; and a mixed vegetable rice dish. Price was about the same as Rubina.

Overall, the food was acceptable, but the portions were much smaller. Three dishes plus rice and naan bread should feed four people comfortably, but there wasn't a crumb left after the meal was over and we all could have eaten more.

The saag panir was very good, and had a late hit of chili heat that was quite nice. The lamb and chicken dishes were satisfactory; nothing any decent Indian place couldn't do equally well. The rice was quite hot though; I like hot food just fine, but it was a lot spicier than the other dishes and overwhelmed the palate somewhat in contrast; we ordered everything "medium" hot. The naan was made a la minute, which is always nice.

How does Red Fort rate then? Overall, I'd say it was decent Indian food. The portions were small compared to their predecessor so you get less bang for the buck. On the whole, I would eat there again, but I'm still looking for my new default Indian place.

Rhubard Custard Pie

My in-laws are here for the weekend and it happened to be my father-in-law's birthday so we had a nice dinner for him last night.

I bought some beautiful ribeye steaks at Famous Foods and marinaded them in a mix of soy, maple syrup, olive oil, and my own spice rub. Acoompanied by a nice mixed salad and new potatoes bought at the Trout Lake farmer's market; the latter were topped with chives from my garden and some sour cream.

For dessert, my wife made one of her specialties and what has become one of my favourites - a rhubarb custard pie. The rhubarb was also acquired at the farmer's market, and it was particularly flavourful. There's just something about a fresh fruit pie that raises it to the sublime.

Simple food is often the best food.

Doctor Who

I don’t watch a lot of teevee these days; indeed, at the moment the only thing I watch is my Doctor Who on Tuesday nights on CBC. After a hiatus of several years, the BBC has revived Dr. Who. It’s been worth watching too. The new Doctor has been excellent, his companions fun, and the stories well done. The BBC has even thrown some money at the special effects department; while keeping with the campy character of the original show, gone are the really cheesy props put together sometimes literally with duct tape and hangar wire.

When I was a kid, not quite in my teens yet, Saturday nights were something I really looked forward to; that was when I would get to watch Harold Lloyd followed by the Hardy Boys, right before which I would get to make myself a bowlful of popcorn with lots of butter and salt.

This long dormant pleasure of popcorn and teevee has been been revived on Tuesdays.

When I was still living in Victoria, I used to attend the Cinecenta cinema at the university; a place that showed many second run films as well as foreign and other unusual movies. I still remember seeing two of the earlier (1960’s vintage) Doctor Who movies there; the rookie projectionist leaving a black spot of silence for about a second or so between reels of the double feature. Brilliantly enjoyable and quite fitting!

Cinecenta distinguished itself in two ways with their popcorn. First, by having good old-fashioned popcorn – popped in coconut oil and seasoned with butter and salt. Just like it should be! Second, by having small quantities available for cheap – as far back as 1998, just before I moved to Vancouver, you could get a 32oz cup of it for a measly $2; not only delicious, but just the right size for a treat.

I still make popcorn this old fashioned way at home for my Tuesday evening decadence. I bought some coconut oil on spec at Famous Foods when I saw it on super sale, not knowing what I would use it for at the time. I still have the old aluminum pot I used as a kid all those years ago to make the popcorn in. I use premium Orville Redenbacher popping corn, popped on a hot burner in the coconut oil; then I add some European style cultured butter and salt. Then off to the comfy seat and the latest installment of Doctor Who!

An hour once a week in front of the teevee, watching a show I enjoyed in the salad days of my youth with perfect old-fashioned popcorn; in short, recapturing if only for an hour the carefree insouciance of an adolescent; this is one of life’s great pleasures.

Tarragon

I have friends who are moving to Calgary; it is always a bittersweet thing when friends move away. On the one hand I am sad they are going away, and on the other I am happy for them and wish them well.

We had planned to invite them over for dinner before they went, but alas he had to go there early so we had his wife and daughter over for dinner last night.

Usually on a weeknight, I don’t make a fancy meal. However, the Sunday dinner of rotisserie chicken was delayed by the previous night’s invitation; I put the chicken on the rotisserie and let it spin outside on the grill, slowly turning a beautiful crispy brown. The meat was deliciously tender and juicy, and the skin crisp and flavourful.

To accompany this fine chicken I decided to make a beurre blanc, which I had not done in a long time. Beurre blanc is a nice light sauce and full of flavour; a little goes a long way indeed. Specifically, tarragon and chicken complement each other beautifully, so I made a tarragon beurre blanc.

To make a beurre blanc, you need to start with a gastrique. I made mine with shallots and garlic and a mix of tarragon wine vinegar and the Gewürztraminer I had on hand. After reducing it to a nice thick marmalade consistency, I added room temperature cubes of butter and whisked each one in until I had the desired consistency and finally added a generous helping of minced fresh tarragon. Salt and pepper to taste of course. It complemented the chicken beautifully.

Baby potatoes and a quick “coleslaw” (made from sui choy) with raisin, feta, sunflower seeds, red bell pepper and Green Goddess dressing I’d made a few days earlier rounded out the meal.

Fresh bread

Despite the heat yesterday afternoon, I decided to bake bread. Of course, as soon as I had finished making the dough, we were invited out to dinner.

Fortunately bread is very forgiving – I simply brought the dough with me. After letting it rise, I took the minute or so needed to knead it for its second rise; once that happened, I then took another minute or two for loaf shaping and put it on the baking sheet. At that point it was time to head home anyways, and so I drove home with a baking sheet ready to get into the oven.

By the time we arrived home, the loaves just needed to wait for the oven to get to the right temperature. A few well placed artistic slashes later, in they went and one hour later fresh bread was cooling on racks on the counter.

There is just something wonderful about fresh bread.

Father's Day

Yesterday was father’s day of course, and it started well with a breakfast of freshly baked croissants and a selection of terrines from Oyama on Granville Island. I like the Straßbourg terrine the best – truffles and pistachios around a core of foie gras. Absolute heaven on the palate: fortunately for my waistline, it’s expensive enough to be an occasional treat rather than a regular at the dining table.

Yesterday was also the day of the “Car Free Festival” on the Drive – they closed off Commercial between Hastings and 1^st and had a big street party. I wish it were like that every weekend. The look on the faces of the drivers going down 1st Avenue was priceless. I finally got some cycling shoes at Bikes on the Drive a few doors down from Memphis Blues, the best place to get southern barbecue in the city; I would argue they’re even better than their other, original location on Broadway.

Café Calabria is always a great place for people watching, and is also always busy. Even so, we’re there regularly enough that Frankie and his dad knows our drinks. We stopped there after checking out the action and also getting our groceries for the week.

For dinner last night, our best friends invited us over for dinner – grilled chicken breasts, beet & potato salad, fresh baked bread, and strawberry shortcake for dessert.

It’s a great time of year.

My Favourite Cookbooks

If you look at my shelves, the most worn book you’ll find is the near-ubiquitous “Joy of Cooking”. It’s a cookbook I have a real love-hate relationship with. I love it as a reference – if you want to know about something, you’ll very likely find it inside its pages. Last summer, while canning fruit and jams and preserves, I wondered about the ease of making soup, chili, stew and so forth using home canning instead of freezing. A quick glance through the “how to can meat” section told me that the short answer is just freeze it.

As a recipe book though, I dislike it. The recipes are usually more complicated than necessary (complex for the sake of complexity I sometimes think) and often suffer from annoying levels of cross-referencing; “start with x (recipe on page 188), followed by y (recipe on page 443) and then …”

Cooking is about technique, not recipes; most of the things I make are based on experience, training (Dubrulle’s classes were very helpful there), and experimentation. The majority of the time I cook without any recipe, except when I am making something like pie crust which, being a baking thing, requires some level of accuracy.

I am approaching 100 cookbooks on my shelves at home; some of them I have never cooked from, and possibly never will; some I use all the time, thought more as inspiration for using an item on hand than for a specific recipe. Otherwise, the most referred to “books” are the binders of notes and recipes from the various workshops and courses I took though the Dubrulle Culinary School’s “Serious Amateur” program.

Some of my cookbooks are reference tomes; some are regional cookbooks acquired on travels around the world; some are beautiful “coffee table” books; most are in English, but I have a few in French and German as well. Very few of them are recipe repositories – indeed, I find it faster to visit Google to find a recipe for something specific than to search through my tomes.

My favourite reference book is the large, heavy, and expensive (but worth every penny) Larousse Gastronomique. I have several other reference books, but Larousse is to the others as the Oxford English Dictionary is to dictionaries.

The Alsace region of France is the home of my favourite food in the world, so it should come as no surprise that my favourite regional cookbook is La Cuisine Alsacienne by Pierre Gärtner. There is an English edition of this book available, but the edition I have is one of the few French language cookbooks I have.

For desserts I turn to two principal sources; Regan Daley’s In the Sweet Kitchen, which is as much cookbook as baking reference; and Rick Rodgers’ Kaffeehaus, which has desserts and pastries from Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

I love bread. Atkins would never work for me because I need good bread in my life. I bake my own as a rule – the light rye I’m known for came from Brotrezepte aus ländlichen Backstuben. Another indispensable source of inspiration for me is The Breads of France.

I have many more potential categories, but these along with my binders of notes and my kitchen journal provide me with all the inspiration and recipes I need for the foods I like to cook.

For eye candy, I have several of the Culinaria series books – Deutschland, France, Italy, Spain, and the European Specialties compendium. I also have both of Thomas Keller’s books (The French Laundry and Bouchon). They’re all very lovely coffee table books.

When I travel, either for business or pleasure, I like to find a local cookbook. I’ve particularly enjoyed Barossa Food, which I picked up in Adelaide. It’s almost not a cookbook so much as a history of how food traditions in the Barossa happened, but it’s complete with recipes. Legal Sea Foods is a chain of restaurants in New England that make very good food indeed; this was a “find” on one of my trips to Boston.

Small pleasures

I was ironing shirts tonight before bed and it struck me that sometimes it's the little things which bring the greatest pleasure; I like the feeling of a nice crisp clean ironed shirt against my skin. I also like laundry that's been dried on a clothesline in the sun; there is a certain crispness and fresh scent of towels and sheets that have had time to hang on a line in the sunshine.

Now, if only I could find a barber in town where I could get a very old fashioned shave with a straight razor, the steamed towel on the face... ahhh, bliss.

Glenys Says...

When I took the first (of several) series of "Serious Amateur" classes at Dubrulle Culinary - alas, discontinued by the Arts Institute when they took it over - I had the great fortune of having Glenys as the instructor.

Glenys is a someone I would point to if asked to provide an example of a great teacher. She exudes confidence, knows her material inside out, and more importantly, can convey what she knows in a manner that people can understand.

For weeks after I took the "9 day", I would begin sentences with "Glenys says...".

I was reminded of that today when I dug through my notes from the 9-day to find the marinade for flank steak.

Flank steak is a tough cut of meat. It was inexpensive at one time, until people came up with good recipes for it and started buying it. Now it's easily as expensive as sirloin or t-bone and sometimes more because of the relative amount of it availble.

However, a lovely piece of flank steak was included in my 1/4 of beef that I bought last fall and was tonight's dinner.

Marinade is simple but tasty. Roughly equal proportions red wine, rice vinegar, olive oil, and soy; three cloves of garlic; about the same amount by volume of chopped ginger; a couple tablespoons of sesame oil. Grill on a hot grill until rare/medium rare. Let it rest for about five minutes. Slice thinly across the grain.

Served with a nice simple green salad, it was delicious.

Edgar Allen Poe

I am fond of the works of Edgar Allen Poe. Having recently acquired Eric Woolfson's album "Poe: More Tales of Mystery and Imagination", a sequel to the 1976 Alan Parsons Project album "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" and reading the liner notes twigged a long lost memory of a little poem he wrote on the topic of beer.

Herewith a great little poem by a great writer.

Lines on Ale

Fill with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain —
Quaintest thoughts — queerest fancies
Come to life and fade away;
What care I how time advances?
I am drinking ale today.

-- by Edgar Allen Poe, 1848

Best places to shop

Vancouver is truly a foodie's paradise. For instance, on Commercial Drive from Hastings down to 12th are on the order of 150 restaurants and depending on your tastes you could eat out at a different place every week and not hit the same kind of cuisine twice.

The "best restaurant" in town though is my own kitchen. This isn't meant as a boast that I could take on Rob Feenie on Iron Chef America or host my own cooking show on Food Network Canada; it is a statement of my confidence in my own culinary skills. I have the adventurous spirit to try new things, a core set of good kitchen tools, and a plethora of cookbooks to refer to for inspiration.

But every cook needs a source for supplies. I buy most things on or near Commercial Drive. There is a plethora of great little shops; Apollo Poultry for all things chicken; many fruit & vegetable markets; Italian delis by the handful; Italian coffee shops to go to after you’re done shopping (although my usual haunt is Café Calabria). Herewith, a small sampling of some of my favourite places to shop in Vancouver for my own little home "restaurant"...

• For cookbooks, there’s no better place to shop than Barbara Jo’s down in Yaletown. If you can’t get inspired to cook here, you shouldn’t set foot in a kitchen. Ever.

• There are two places I like to shop for cheese. The first is La Grotta del Formaggio on Commercial Drive. Italian style sandwiches, cheese from around the world (including many Italian cheeses as one might expect), deli meats including imported prosciutto, and they’re also the source of the fresh cake yeast I use in my baking. The second is Les Amis du Fromage. They’re a short distance from Granville Island, and you can almost just follow your nose there. They are pricier than La Grotta, but unbeatable for selection.

• Granville Island is renowned for its food market, but I like to shop at the local farmer’s market. The food there is local, often organic, and usually less expensive than the aforementioned Granville Island. You can also get things that are unavailable anywhere else in town.

• Speaking of Granville Island, one of my favourite places there is Oyama Sausage. They make all their own products, including terrines (the Strasbourg is my favourite), duck and goose confit, and throughout the year make seasonal specialties. In the fall, their order-ahead cassoulet for 2 is unbeatable and only around $12. Don’t forget to stop by La Baguette & L’Échallotte to get some bread to go with your terrine.

• Also on Granville Island is my favourite kitchen store in Vancouver, the Market Kitchen. It’s a small cozy shop with a wide selection of items including obscure things like truffle slicers; their proximity to the Pacific Culinary Arts School near the entrance to Granville Island certainly helps. The service and selection here are great!

• If you like sausages, ham, bacon, and other pork items, the place to go is the J N & Z Deli on Commerical Drive between 1^st and 2^nd (a few doors north of La Grotta). They have an open smoker and do all their own cured meats in house. Their smoked side bacon is divine. On Fridays and Saturdays only they have fresh pork, veal, and sausages available. On Saturday mornings, if you’re early enough, you can get their homemade fresh and hot from the oven meatloaf or roast suckling pig.

• Still on the Drive, Fratelli’s Italian bakery makes wonderful (and small!) pastries; their St. Honoré cake is a gourmand delight too. I find most places make unnecessarily huge pastries. I’ve often gone for a coffee and thought, “hmm, a cookie would be nice.” Unfortunately, what’s usually on offer is a cookie about the size of a dinner plate and not very good either. Here you can buy a dozen cookies to share with a few friends and have three different good ones instead of one monstrous yucky one.

• Famous Foods at the corner of Kingsway & Perry (between Knight and Victoria) is a great place to find all those obscure items that nobody else carries. Need almond bitter extract? They have it. Need bulk whole rye grain? They have it. Don’t want the mainstream brand of something? They have it. An entire row of various nut butters you can’t find anywhere else? They also carry buffalo meat in their butcher section.

• I usually buy my meat wholesale from farmers of my acquaintance, but Hills Foods in Burnaby is a wholesaler of all kinds of exotic meats and game. You need to spend at least $100 and you have to pick it up on site.

• The Gourmet Warehouse is a great place to find exotic or specialty ingredients. However, if you’re willing to spend the time exploring the Italian shops along Commercial Drive you’ll find most of what’s sold here and for less. Nevertheless, these guys have great product selection and great service. Another good place to look, although arrogantly pricy, is Meindhart’s Fine Foods on Granville and 14^th.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but this is where I would send anyone who moved to Vancouver recently to shop.

Intuit Loses a Customer

Down with Quicken!

One of the joys of getting a new computer with a different OS is migrating all ones data over.

Fortunately, some bright spark out there has created a product called Move2Mac that lets you do just that! I moved everything painlessly to my Mac with this software and special USB cable.

However, one thing that doesn't transfer over nicely is Quicken data files; in no small part, this is because the Mac version is not as feature rich as the PC version.

Nevertheless, despite my best efforts, I have been unable to transfer any of my financial data from my Windows edition of Quicken to the Mac version. The file is there, Quicken for Mac can read it, but it inevitably comes up with complete spaghetti for values.

The online help at Intuit is not helpful, and I'll be damned if I'm paying $14.95 to talk to their tech support people.

So I've given it some thought... I don't really need to keep track of all my expenditures, since I never really do anything with the information anyways. For those household expenses that my wife and I share in, it's easily kept track of in an Excel spreadsheet (or even a pencil and paper list stuck to the fridge).

My bank keeps track of all my accounts and has statements available going back a year in electronic format online. Ditto my investments. I can even do pretty charts and graphs. My bills are almost all automated. There are no debts to keep track of since I pay the credit cards in full every month.

So why bother?

I hereby say PHOOEY ON QUICKEN!

:-)

We now return to our usual programming.

Thai Son

Yesterday for lunch, I had the pleasure of going to a Vietnamese place called Thai Bon.

I say pleasure because I'm not usually wild about Vietnamese; the last time I waxed poetic about Vietnamese was the time I had curry chicken phô at Phô Pasteur in Toronto.

Of all the Asian cuisines, Vietnamese and Korean (especially the latter) have failed to impress me. It's less a function of the relative quality of these cuisines but rather that my palate just isn't wired that way. De gustibus non est disputandum.

But Thai Bon was great! It's a little place in one of those endless nooks and crannies off Number 3 Road in Richmond (and they have a second location at Main & Kingsway in the Kingsgate Mall apparently).

The menu is pretty straightforward and what you'd expect at a Vietnamese place. I had one of the lunch specials, consisting of lemongrass pork chops and "broken rice", which seemed to be steamed rice that was fully cooked and yet still al dente like a good pasta. My lunch companion had the chicken version, and we shared a salad roll which was exceptionally tasty.

I've added it to my list of options for weekday work lunch places along with I Love Sushi (Japanese), the Moutai (Szechuan), Hon's (cheap Chinese), Risty's (classic diner), Curry Express (Indian), and Rooster's Quarters (Montreal style roast chicken and smoked meat sandwiches).

Lunch for two was $20 including a quite generous tip. Recommended.

Happiness Is...

... a well stocked larder and well appointed kitchen.

One of the benefits of having a large chest freezer in the garage is that I can do things like buy a 1/4 beef or side of pork, usually from farmers I know, and store it. This has the dual benefits of letting me know the source of the meat my family eats and also keeps the cost down.

This weekend I had the time to cook at my leisure so I made a prime rib roast; I was in an experimental mood so I made a pepper crust for it. I used a peppercorn blend I had (red, green, white, black, and coriander), some allspice, flour, mustard, butter, and a little salt and rubbed the entire roast and cooked it to a nice medium rare in the centre.

My wife made a rhubarb custard pie as well, so we invited our best friends over for dinner - prime rib, nice bottle of BC red, salad, , potatoes fried in duck fat, pie for dessert. Delicious.

Apples, iPods, and iTunes

For many years I've wanted a Mac. However, the price was always a barrier (when you compare similar systems, Windows boxes have always been significantly cheaper).

However, the happy confluence of a slowly bit-rotting Dell PC, being a grad student (and thus eligible for academic computer pricing) and the release of the Mac mini and new series of iMacs, I am now the very happy owner of a new iMac and iPod mini.

I know why I waited to long, but I'm sorry that I did - from the perspective of someone who has shifted from being a "techie" to devoting my attentions to far more interesting pursuits, Apple's products are nothing short of brilliant.

And I won't even wax poetic about iTunes except to say the RIAA should take the blinders off about music downloading and adopt Apple's iTunes store model.

The Reasonable Food Plan

A Healthy Guide to Sustainable Eating

I've been watching the fad of low carb diets with a lot of interest, especially as the Atkins, South Beach, and other low-carb diets reduced bread consumption in the US by 40% in 2003 [USA Today, et al], and even was recently blamed by Krispy Kreme as one of the reasons it posted a loss in its most recent quarterly earnings report.

Around the holiday season last year, a whole flock of people in my office went on South Beach together. They all lost a very impressive amount of weight in a short time, and with limited exception, have all put at least some of it back on again, and none are still on it (or claim they're on a "modified" version of it).

This isn't meant to debunk the low-carb diets out there. A friend of mine on Atkins is doing very well on it (and grumbles that he is consistently about 2 lbs behind me our mutual weight loss - amusingly, between us we've lost about 88% of what his wife weighs). A couple I know have done and continue to follow South Beach and look great.

But when I began my own personal quest for weight loss, fitness, and overall general health improvement, I did some research into some of the more popular plans out there, including Atkins and South Beach, and concluded they weren't for me. Quackwatch had this to say on the subject of low-carb diets "Many promoters of dietary schemes would have us believe that a special substance or combination of foods will automatically result in weight reduction. That's simply not true. To lose weight, you must eat less, or exercise more, or do both." cf. http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/lcd.html.

One of the reasons neither Atkins nor South Beach appealed to me is they both involve denial. In both of their respective induction phases, where most of the weight loss is water (albeit I must admit losing 10-15 lbs in two weeks is very motivating!), you're essentially not allowed to eat any carbohydrates. No bread, rice, pasta, or potatoes. No fruit. Certain vegetables are also out.

I can readily see the psychological appeal of restricted diets - go forth ye sinner, and eat no more of the things that art making thou fat! Not so long ago, fat was the culprit. Today its carbs. Tomorrow... Well, there's already talk that Atkins is going to have an IPO. Low carb is less and less a diet story and more and more a business one. Everywhere you go now, there are low carb options on menus, low carb bread (say what?), even low carb pizza (thank you Panago). Some of these things might even taste good (and from experience, some of them do).

Well, I'm going to stand up and say "I like carbs! Carbs are good!" The development of agriculture and the processes to turn grain into flour and the resultant discovery of bread (and beer! How can we forget beer!) were not the original harbingers of the end of western civilization - after all, in Europe, Italians happily continue to eat pasta (Mmm, pasta!).

Indeed, if you asked the average Italian if they were "watching their carb intake", you'd get "che cosa?" in response.

So, what's was wrong with what I was eating? Generally, nothing - I eat local seasonal fresh as much as possible, I avoid processed, I don't do McD's...

So I consulted with my doctor (he being a very supportive doc) and I came up with what I've dubbed the "Reasonable Food Plan", which runs like so...

The Basic Plan

Breakfast - oatmeal (or cereal, or a bagel). Essentially, something with a lot of complex carbs to keep my metabolism happy and fuelled until lunch.

Between breakfast and lunch - 2-3 pieces of fruit, carrots or other
crunchy veg, nuts, cheese.

Lunch - Lunch is the main meal of day. Pizza, pasta, soup, sandwiches, burgers, fancy salads... This is when I eat them.

After 2pm, nothing til dinner.

Dinner - Dinner consists of a portion protein and vegetables. Too many examples to list, but consider for example an 8oz steak with a nice fresh salad (incluing dressing).

Nothing after 8pm until breakfast the next morning.

Here's why I think it works:

Key - You need lots of energy first thing in the morning and also at lunch to sustain you through the day. In the evenings, not so much. Carbs give tons of energy, so why not have them early and for lunch.

So really what I have achieved is to eat food when my body really needs it, and not when it doesn't. By not eating anything after 2pm, I'm forcing my body to use up what I had for lunch, or to burn fat. In the evenings, a light meal of protein and vegetables satisfies hunger without overdoing portion.

A side benefit of having my main meal at lunch time is I'm usually not very hungry at dinner time. I believe that this more than anything has reduced the amount I eat because seconds don't look as tempting as they once did - I'm already full!

Another reason it works for me is there's nothing forbidden on the food list. I don't have to cut anything out. Foie gras for lunch? Why not!

Of course, the devil is always in the details. Coffee? Beer? Wine? That fancy dinner invitation at Le Crocodile, (which is hardly a place where the words "low carb" can be uttered with any sincerity)? How much salad dressing?

Let me take you through a relatively representative week.

Breakfast is easy - Tuesday and Thursday I go work out at the Y, and I always go to the Starbucks across the street and have a "grande" skim milk latte (and for the record, I've always had skim milk drinks since I like the flavour better), and once I get to the office, I have oatmeal and a banana. On the mornings I'm home, I have a bowl of cereal, and occasionally a bagel. On the weekends, usually on Sunday, I like to indulge in bacon and eggs or waffles.

Lunch - again, I usually bring my own, and a typical lunch bag has a large sandwich (today it happens to be Montreal smoked meat with cheese on my home baked light rye, cheese, an apple, a banana, a bag of carrots, and yogourt). Once a week, my friend and I go to my favourite diner and I'll have a bowl of soup and the reuben on rye or the monte cristo, or maybe the special of the day will catch my eye. I sometimes even ask for a salad instead of fries.

Dinner - Monday night I made a smoked turkey fritatta (eggs, smoked turkey, leeks, and mushrooms). Tonight will be leftover sauerbraten (a German delicacy for those not in the know) with gravy and probably steamed carrots. Last week I grilled steaks to be served with a salad, and the night before that we had a take out chicken from Costco and broccoli.

Several times a week, I'll have some dark chocolate after dinner. On Saturdays after shopping on the Drive, I go to Cafe Calabria and have a cappucino and an Italian pastry before lunch. I often have coffee in the mornings, especially with my young daughter interrupting my sleep.

Also, one day a week I 'cheat' and eat whatever I want. Right now, my 'cheat' day is Saturday, but if I know I'm going out for a fancy dinner at Le Crocodile then I adjust accordingly.

This food plan is less a restriction diet than shifting when I eat what I eat.

To date, since my birthday in 2003, I've lost 60lbs.

The only exercise I do is I go to the gym 2x a week and do 45-60 minutes of the power pacing (aka spin) class (depending how early I need to be in the office - the class is at 6:15am). As the weight's come off, I've experienced the usual "more energy" and now walk more than I used to. I even go for long bike rides around Stanley Park now.

But that's another essay all on its own.

In der Bar Zum Krokodil

In der Bar zum Krokodil[1]

[I originally wrote this in May of 2004, but had not yet published this]

Allow me to state my preferences up front – of all the various gastronomic delights it has been my pleasure to experience, the cuisine offered by the Alsace is my absolute favourite. The combination of wines, the best whites in world as far as my palate goes, and the best both German and French influences can provide on the table make it unbeatable in my books.

While I was taking my intermediate certificate in wine and spirits from the Wine Spirit Education Trust earlier in 2004, Mark Davidson told us on the evening we were sampling wines from Alsace that the annual “Festival du Choucroute” would be happening at Le Crocodile very soon. My wife and I made reservations and had one of the finest meals of our lives.

When the opportunity arose to spend an evening at Dubrulle and be entertained by Chef Michel from Le Crocodile, learn some of his tricks and recipes, and have his sommelier match nice Alsace varietal wines with each dish, I had to go of course!

Of the dishes demonstrated that evening, one was a combination I never would have thought of myself – choucroute au poisson. Sauerkraut with fish! Fish! Now, when I think of choucroute, I think of pork hock, sausage, bacon, and smoked pork chops. With fresh water fish, trout, perch, pike, and a little beurre blanc, choucroute becomes a light airy dish.

At the end of the evening, after sampling classic Alsace dishes such as tarte a l’oignon, tarte flambée, terrine de foie gras, the aforementioned choucroute, and for dessert a delicious serving of beignets de pommes, Chef Michel said “I have a large kitchen”, and if anybody were interested we could come visit his restaurant and spend the evening in the kitchen.

This was an opportunity not to be missed. I have always been curious about how a restaurant kitchen operates. With the opportunity and personal invitation of Michel after class, (“ne vous gêné pas!”), I had no excuses. Two weeks later, after making arrangements with my beautiful wife and two week old daughter to indulge my gastronomic hobby, I arrived at Le Crocodile at 6pm.

I was introduced to Frank, who is the head chef. He has been working there for ten years and claims to have never eaten in the restaurant. “When the restaurant is open, I am working in the kitchen.” Frank runs the kitchen at lunch and is Michel’s right hand man during dinner. Frank procured me a chef’s jacket and then introduced me around and gave me a tour.

The kitchen is darker than I expected, although quite adequately lit for the work that will be done that evening. There are nine people working that evening, and three guests visiting including myself. Saturday evenings are busy and roughly 110 people will be dining in the restaurant tonight.

The kitchen is reasonably sized, and there is no wasted space. Counters run along all four walls and there are two long cooking areas in the central area. The one closest to the dining room is the final plating and pick up area. It also has the small printer that spits out the orders the waiters enter on the terminal outside.

The other cooking area has the grill and cook top for sauces on one side, and the hot entrée and deep-frying area on the other. The walk-in refrigerator and the door to one of the wine storage rooms are beyond that. In the corner is the freezer where the ice cream and other frozen items are kept.

Kelly is one of two hot entrée cooks.

Julie is the pastry chef. Frank does the sauces.

The restaurant business is hard. The working conditions are physically demanding. The kitchen, especially in summer, is unbearably hot.

Michel is a genial host and we were served with a Kir, which is a drink made from white wine with a few drops of cassis. Not long after, we were given a little amuse-bouche to tempt our palates, a foie gras tart. As Kelly said, “these things are pure fat. Your taste buds love you but your arteries hate you.”

A professional kitchen never wastes anything. Since foie gras does not come in convenient uniform sizes that let you make rounds and rounds of it, there are inevitably a few end pieces left. So the surplus pieces were used to make the tarts.

Tartelettes au Foie Gras

6 egg yolks
1 litre of cream
100g foie gras

Blend the above ingredients in a blender until smooth, season to taste with salt and nutmeg. Pour into tart shells and bake until set.

The pace at the beginning of the evening is slow. Everyone in the kitchen is happy to talk to us – it is obvious that they have had visitors before and that they even enjoy it, especially since it is pretty easy to stay out of the way.

8:30 was the peak busy time and nobody was talking anymore. Chef Michel and Frank would call out orders and the various folks would call the order back and start preparing them. Even though everyone was now working quickly, it was very orderly.

A second round of Kir arrived, as well as a sample of tomato-gin soup. I am fond neither of gin, nor in general of tomato soup, but the combination was fabulous – I would happily order it any time.

A third round of Kir magically appeared, as well as some escargots.

A fourth (and final) round of Kir was served to us, and we were invited to have a table in the dining room. By then I was quite full, but I ordered the white asparagus with seared foie gras with morel sauce, one of the entrée[2] specials that evening, and asked the waiter to have Julie to pick a dessert for me. She sent out the mille feuille de bananes flambé au rhum[3]. Delicious.

Le Crocodile is not an inexpensive restaurant. However, it is excellent value for the money. http://www.lecrocodilerestaurant.com/

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[1] I cannot resist a good pun. The Alsace was “traded” between Germany and France for a significant part of its history, Le Crocodile has a bar, and the Comedian Harmonists have a song called “In der Bar zum Krokodil”.

[2] Entrée in this case means appetizer.

[3] Warm Sauteed Banana Mille Feuille Flambeed with Cuban Rum