existentialist cuisine for vagrants and misanthropes

this is the first of two posts. here's the francaisey cuisine i've been hangin out with recently. i don't really have a social life anymore, so i guess considering food as a friend is not only sad, but also pathetic. mange mange, mes amours. keep it regional, keep it seasonal (copyright ben preston, cordon bleu translator...i feel the need to always credit this guy)

0. amuse bouche

before i get into this massive update, here are some tasters for those sick individuals who like looking at food, buck naked and tarted up for the camera.

my brother's birthday. eye of round roast from the healthy butcher (my work), potato puree with homemade pesto, sauteed yellow zucchini and honey, roasted woodland mushrooms.

goat cheese with truffles. long live the truff daddy. there's a guy who works two doors down from my work at a short gentleman's clothing shop (5'7" and under) and he is a piedmont italy truffle dealer. he did not make these, but i can assume he brought them here to canada. in the background, some riopelle cheese (THE ULTIMATE CHEESE. MAKES BRIE LOOK LIKE HOUSE PARTY 2)

Yellowknife Carbonara: a tribute to my fam up in the YK. smoked artic char from great slave lake, cherry tomatoes, green onions, red basil. delish.

1. escoffier meets ol' dirty bastard

a long road of coronary debauchery and middle class work ethic over the past few months has deprived me of the time to do any sort of writing whatsoever. no fiction and no gonzo food journalism for this man. so, for the few people that read this, i'd like to apologize for my long hiatus from the world of food writing. nothing has really changed. i am still a chainsmoking fool with a penchant for anything with an alcohol content, perpetually single and forever famished, an ever growing hunger rumbling in my core for knowledge. i've resigned myself to the fact that this food kick i started a few years back is going to last until someone (not saying any names, cough cough future ex wife #2) does themselves a favor and puts me out of their misery. on this meaningless amber wave we call a live, i'd like to learn as much as possible about food. this is the mission.

i'll try to be economical with my words in the next few paragraphs as i give a pornographic update of what my camera has had the pleasure of seeing. i'm also following this post with another quasi essay post on the butcher shop i work at here in trawna (the healthy butcher, 565 queen st. west, toronto, ontario) . so if you're not a reader, you can scroll through all the pictures. cue bob dylan's bringing it all back home.

on america, fuck yeah: so i went to the states for the first time in my adult life a few weeks ago to go see NOFX and cocksparrer. chicago illinois. where your president represents, where you brag about wind and where grant achatz hangs his boots after creating a dish that uses agar agar and stem cells. i also went to see how different a place it really is. i went to one of your gas stations, america. holy shit. everything in america costs less and is three times the size of everything we have here in canada. i felt like a bandit at our first break in michigan. i walked out with two packs of combos, a pack of pork rinds, a pack of jerky, a huge vitamin water and some pretzel poppers. seven bucks. beer is cheap everywhere and in chicago, there's a real blue state feel to it. everything is green, eco friendly and organic. not in the obnoxious hippie way like vancouver, but more in a...presidential way, shall we say. i went to brobama's favourite breakfast nook, had eggs benny at two am and hungout in the flat iron drinking cheap budweiser and smoking marlboro reds. i could easily make an obesity reference when talking about food, but i'll merely make a veiled comment through mentioning how i could do something but won't. the highlight of the trip? hangover breakfast at this place called Cracker Barrel. do you yanks know what i'm talking about? man...IT WAS AWESOME. really friendly service, great food and A MUG OF LEMONADE THAT GETS REFILLED EVERY FIVE SECONDS? FUCK RIGHT OFF. SPLENDID. anyhow here are some pics of that. i'm going to NYC for five days to kickoff 2010, you know, the year that team canada hockey wins another gold and they reinvent the dinosaur for all of us to feast on.

A PICKLED EGG AT SOME COMMIE BAR IN TORONTO A FEW NIGHTS BEFORE CHICAGO.

off of the obama special menu. can someone remind me the name of this place? eight bucks for a steak and eggs and potatoes. this place was packed and reminded me of a cafeteria run by the navy seal equivalent of cafeteria cooks.
"whaddaya want?"
"uh..."
"c'mon, i ain't got all day. take ya order or i'm movin on to the next person."
your order gets finished in less than one minute.

eggs benny at this indie vegetarian friendly restaurant for fixed bike hipsters. this is one of my favourite meals of all time. whenever you catch me the morning after a night of heavy drinking, i will quest miles on horseback to get an eggs benny. you will come with me and i will protect you when the varmints with sixshooters come to bother us. they will perish and we shall drink caesars while eating the delicious meal we fought so hard to get. (side note about the actual food: hollandaise was made to order at 2 in the morning. my glasses got smashed at the cocksparrer concert. i couldn't see what i was eating and it made it all the better.)

my little gentlemen eating their cracker barrel meals and loving it. in front is my onion rings and reuben sandwich. another hangover favourite. i would burn rome to the ground again for one of these babies...i mean what? who said that? i don't even know who rome is.

thanksfuckinggiving: turkey? gravy? cranberry sauce? root veg and all them trimmings? oh please sah can have some more? MOOOORREEE? i give thanks for thanksgiving. i do not give thanks for white colonialists who founded a land of overconsumption and greed by way of murder and rape, centuries later resulting in a land rife with people like me loaded to their gills with white guilt and meaningless neuroses. forget i said that. anyhow, thanksgiving is another proponent to my "people cook better when they're stressed out" theory. thanksgiving and christmas have caused more heart attacks and hot flashes than elvis ever did. in theory, they're not really good ideas. "hey, here's an idea. let's get our inlaws who hate each other, our children who rarely speak to us and our senile parents who are still dissapointed in us together at one table and cook them a bunch of food and talk about life." they are the sites of many a compromising revelation: lucy is pregnant, granddad had an affair with the stewardess, mikey's appearance on girls gone wild with lucy's father saw. THAT SAID, if your family isn't dysfunctional and everything is hunky dory, it still doesn't matter. there is stress there. the turkey has to be perfect with golden crispy skin, the potatoes nice and fluffy, the gravy properly seasoned. on top of that, there's the stress of timing everything to coordinate for seating after the aperitif of pabst blue ribbon and jackson triggs sauvignon blanc. huh..sounds just like a professional kitchen. anyhow, here was my thanksgiving meal for my roommate, my brother and a pretty girl friend of ours.

and in the top left we have green beans and walnuts. below that citrus squash with orange segments. beneath the saran wrap, mash potatoes with chive, truffle oil and half a block of butter. and then the gravy that cooked just as long as the turkey.

the ghetto chef returns.

this turkey was fifteen pounds. i brined it for twenty four hours in my own special mix of brining herbs and spices. i madea butter ball using 6 fine herbs, shallots, garlic, black truffle liquor and butter and shoved it under the skin. i shoved a lemon, a bouquet garni and salt and pepper in the rear of the bird. i wrapped it in bacon and trussed it. then i threw it in the oven on low heat for something like six hours. thanksgiving with a misanthrope, done.

we invited the pauper to cut our turkey. then we kicked him out after stealing his Fucked Up tshirt.

fuckoff and die pumpkin pie: pumpkin puree, butter, cacao, ground espresso beans, cinnamon, nutmeg, chocolate chips, yogurt, whipping cream and detergent.

i have moved to little chinatown in the east end of toronto. there's a fish and aquarium store where they sell live shark by the pound...??? when you walk past the restaurants in the morning, you can see the cooks assembling hundreds of little bento boxes. when you come home in the evening, they're packed to the gills serving up some of the city's best kept secrets. one of my upcoming posts is going to be a little chinatown underground look. they don't like it when you take pictures of the food. i'm a curious bastard with sneaky journalistic tendencies. anyhow, it's late here in the city, i just ate a huge meal of spicy garlic deep fried squid, scallop and shrimp; mushu beef and house fried rice. i need to knock back a green tea and call it a night. a butcher's log is going to be up in the next day or two. adios, fellow foodites. it feels good to be rappin about food again.

signed,

the winter of our discontent

confessions of an organic butcher apprentice

i can't believe it's been three months. i've switched countries and major cities carrying a backpack full of clothes, an ammo pack of cookbooks, a culinary school diploma and a well worn set of wusthofs constantly in need of a good sharpening. let's not forget about the unforgivable debt. i split from paris, france where the holy trinity of french cuisine is duck fat, foie gras and truffles and the long reigning deity is butter. from there i landed in Toronto, Ontario, which for those of you who might not know is in Canada. now, i'd like to, if i may, describe the Toronto landscape in terms of food. and not talk about all the drinking, the cursing and the unmentionable deeds i've committed behind the guise of being a cook.

i forgot about Toronto. it's referred to as a multicultural mosaic. there are people from all walks of life, all nations and all culinary backgrounds. and now, i'm going to shock you: fuck paris. toronto, believe it or not, is a real food mecca. AND WE SPEAK ENGLISH HERE. okay that was a low blow. i love the french, but toronto is catching up in the food dept. i know...toronto. nobody takes canada seriously...BUT THEY SHOULD. especially with the great restaurants in town.

whereas in paris there are small pockets of OKAY ethnic cuisine, the resto scene is predominantly french. go figure. as such, most wacky ingredients you won't be able to find at your average grocery stores such as franprix and monoprix...stick your head in a price chopper? WHAT THE DEUCE? PICKLED TRIPE? CHINESE EGGPLANT? PORK FATBACK? GREEN MOLE? THIS IS PRICE CHOPPER, RIGHT? I DIDN'T FALL INTO SOME TWILIGHT ZONE FOURTH DIMENSION OF WHIMSY AND FUNFARE DID I? no no friend, you're just in toronto. i imagine, though i've never been, new york is much like toronto in that respect. except here, some mechanic from yonkers won't break your teeth in over the last jar of powdered ginger. no sir, here is the average squabble in a canadian grocery store:

"no you were here first. please take it!"
"oh no, my dear fellow compatriate of the maple leaf, the ginger is all thine."
"oh but i couldn't, listen i'll just buy some fresh ginger and crush it into a fine powder myself."
"I WAS THINKING OF DOING THE SAME THING!"
"friends forever!"

so...fresh out of culinary school and i thought long and hard about what i wanted to do. what do i love but know next to nothing about? the answer was meat. i fielded a bunch of offers but i was really waiting out on just one: i'm now a butcher. i've traded in my chef's knife and paring blade for a scimitar and a boning knife which i hold in a completely different way. it is more physically demanding than any job i've done. long gone are the days of michael douglas, in are the days of christian bale in american psycho. i wake up in the middle of the night with numb sensations in my left hand (known as the butcher's claw). i've cut and nicked myself more than i have in any other kitchen. some things don't change. i still work with boozers and sexual deviants who have wonderful and beautiful life stories, i'm learning something new everyday. and the quality of food? off the wall. without naming any names, which i might have accidentally done in one of the pictures, i work at an organic butcher shop in the heart of the city of toronto and we do things right there. over the next few months, i hope to enlighten people on organic and free range meat in this ongoing personal history of new food. so for any of you few readers out here, this is the direction that this blog is headed. still tons of pics of food and what not and i'm even going to be posting more recipes that are mine from home because i will no longer be at legal odds with those cordon bleu lawyers.

why i eat meat or life according to hugh fearnley whittingstall:

i feel the need to justify why i eat, butcher and am essentially accessory to the slaughter of meat before i spend the next few months diving into the world of butchery.

i am now on the opposite end of the vegan. if i wasn't before what with my gallivanting with sweetbreads and foie gras...i've definitely drawn a line in the sand. i've approached the topic fairly often in my not so often posts and i'd like to think that i've tried to weigh in on the line of considerate. i'm not going to bring vegetarians into this because...well...frankly, i'm just dissapointed in moral vegetarians. go big or go home. abstain from all animal product or indulge. fence sitting equals ripped pants and scraped rumps.

with the differences between vegans and meat eaters, you're either a holier than thou self righteous skeleton who eats rabbit food or you're a murderous black hearted sadist who eats the flesh of the living. neither of which is a fair picture to say the least. the fact that the two factions are so split kind of sucks. there's hardline vegan hardcore bands (see vegan reich) and radical vegan organizations which hold vegan potlucks (which the FBI, in their infinite wisdom and in their fight for absolute justice, try to infiltrate...let them be idiots), with great intentions but poor delivery and they are really in your face about being vegan. on the flip side, you've got a culture which has pretty much meat eating as non chalant an act as breathing, as such there's an inherent wont for radical action. and then you the Anthony Bourdains of the world. guys like him who ignorantly lash out against our pals in the eating of food business. me? some of the best sex i've ever had has been with vegans. i hate radicals on both sides of the coin in general because i'm reminded of hippies and lord...i hate hippies. i also hate fascists like hitler. JUST IN CASE YOU THOUGHT OTHERWISE. FRENCH CUISINE GOOD, HITLER BAD. i mean, it may be idealist of me to believe in a world where the two can live in harmony free of the mammoth elephant in the room, fuck it. i'm an idealist. let me lay it out for you:

if you eat meat, you're not only supporting the commodifying of flesh but in the whole animal kingdom (which includes us, unless you're a far right evangelist who thinks darwin is full of it...which he's not...so stop thinking in the stone age...that's the age that came after the time we were APES) we're the only ones who plan and carry out death warrants on "helpless animals". on top of this, the environmental damage the meat industry wreaks on the planet is endless. so are the other negative effects of the meat business the world over. PLUS ITS JUST SO...SAVAGE AND WILD.

dear vegans...you see now right? i get it? i mean, that's pretty much it, see? animals, like their equal organisms aka humans, have the moral right not to be harmed. that's the bottom line. and its a hard bottom line to argue, especially since most vegans have read a shit ton more books than i ever have and always cite these inane precedents which are absolutely impossible to refute and they all have this wonderful way of bending what you say to make you look like an asshole or even worse, they corner you into cowing to their position or irritating you to the point where you roll your eyes because they just cannot accept your reasons for eating meat. this is more a slight on me than them. i am a butcher (apprentice). i am a carnivore. i am also, believe it or not, human. so...dearest vegans who look on me with scorn and hatred (i know that a majority of you are rational kids who will gladly have polite discourse with me rather than hateful argument), like it or not, physiologically and biologically...i'm pretty much just like you. which is why i guess you find it so horrible that i can't match you ideologically.

so maybe i'm speciest, which is an actual term to describe the technical equivalent of a racist. with that in mind, let's go back in time shall we? WE WERE FUCKING MONKEYS! YOU KNOW WHAT MONKEYS DO? CHIMPANZEES ARE AS FUCKING RUTHLESS AS THE BLOODS AND THE CRIPS. THEY KILL EACH OTHER IN ROVING GANGS FOR SPORT! i don't see vegans picketing chimps in the savannah. while i understand this is a bit of a far fetched and ridiculous beginning into my argument of being a meat eater, it has some valid ground to stand on. we are animals. animals kill other animals for the purpose of food. this is fact. this almost becomes a classist debate. we're not hyenas or wolves or on their level, so what ARE we doing killing these poor defenseless creatures? hold up. we've been doing this for hundreds of years. poultry, game, beef, pork, etc. we've been at this for so long that these animal depend on us for their survival. it's been coded into them. if we just all stopped eating meat at once and let them run free, they'd probably die on a mass scale because they wouldn't know what the fuck to do with themselves. would you be just as willing to be the caretaker for another species as you would your own family? if we all went the way of the vegan, in the state that the world is in right now, environmentally we'd really be fucking ourselves over more than we already have.

i'll admit that the meat trade can be a sick and disturbing place. factory farms are horrific and the conditions that some of these animals live in is just downright awful. chickens in the thousands are known to go on suicide stampedes and trample each other to death. there are statistics which measure how much of the profit margin will be lost due to disease, malnutrition and poor care. some of them get strapped up like junkies to cocktails of there's abuse and horrid exposure to cruel elements of the industry and a lot of it is fucked up, not okay and not right. i'll concede that. however, the industry which i've chosen to work for, the organic and free range meat trade. then there's animal testing and animal abuse left right and center which i am definitely not for. there's the michael vick's of the world and the cruel ten year olds with magnifying glasses on the side of the road.

the utopia i see, as i've learned in the past month of working at the butcher shop is one where we have free range farms where cows can graze and lead "happy" lives chewing the cud, free of genetically modified grain and injections and receive the utmost care from their farmer up until the point of their death. this makes a lot of sense. the meat would cost more, but that would mean we'd eat less and in turn we'd be able to afford these farms and this way of raising our food. which we can totally do.

now for the killing part. this is the one where most meat eaters are ignorant. if you're going to be a "proud" carnivore who despises vegans, watch a couple of videos of cows going to a slaughter house. ramsay's F-Word (television show) provides a real and visceral film of how we get our food. YOU SHOULD KNOW. don't dive into blissful ignorance...KNOW and RESPECT your meat and learn how you got it from the butcher shop to your kitchen table. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY.

a lot of this new thinking has been fostered by one man. hugh fearnley whittingstall . my boss told me to pick up his book. he wrote this amazing book called the river cottage meat book which i'm well into right now. it's a weighty tome that "encourages you to think about the meat you eat. is it good enough? good enough to bring you pleasure everytime you eat it? what about the animals it comes from? have they lived well? and what about theway you cook meat? are you adventurous with it? do you respect it and do it justice?" in the book he talks about killing animals for food. to paraphrase, he essentially says that it is in the natural order of things. we are not killing the animal for sport or pleasure, we're killing it for food. if we don't do it, some other animal will. that's the simba's lion king elton john circle of life for you. we're pretty nice about it too. we "corral them into groups, load them onto trucks, prod and poke them into a reasonably orderly queue and shoot them in the head with a captive bolt". we don't chase them down like a game of cougars vs deer where they chase them down and tear into their spinal cords ripping them around whilst splaying their guts all over the cordillera. and don't even get me started on reptiles.
CROCODILES? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? and we watch this on the discovery channel...my friend brought up the issue of commodification. animals in the wild don't sell each other off for benjamin franklins, no. that's all fair game out there. see...with our team, we're try to raise them in the best way possible and try to take them out of this world at the prime of their life. what we do, ain't so bad.

especially if we do it:
organically
free range
gmo free
and with a little love.

this is simply the beginning. i'm going to research a lot more and present more valid arguments for the rights associated with eat meat. as this won't ever be done, i'll always be here to take in any opposing viewpoints with a grain of salt and i'll duly have friendly debate.
enough ranting...how about a tour of a butcher shop and some food pics of?

THE SUMMER OF THE GRILL. my boys and i have a little shitty hibachi we tote around with us and grill in public places.

wagyu beef burgers! so succulent. wagyu cattle are kind of like kobe except they're not forcefed anything. they're a hybrid americanized breed of wagyu cattle and american red angus so they can acclimatize to the harsh conditions.

so...all this talk of being nice to food and the devil in me gets brought foie gras from my old roommate from paris. prepare for the ultimate paradox. foie gras....

foie gras, organic, free range wagyu beef burgers, no condiments, toasted multi whole grain THIN bread. done. i'm a jerk. listen...i'm just getting used to this whole organic and free range business. i'm going to swear that stuff of soon...as soon as you all swear off hating your inlaws. i know you do!

strawberry elk breakfast sausages! white wine and venison sausages! bricks!

my friend nick is the grill master.

fall in august. pork tenderloin stuffed with foie gras, white balsamic and peach puree, caramelized golden delicious apples, pork and shallot jus.

the end of a shift. the cleaning of the swords.

our butcher's block. bleach buckets of hot water underneath. sanitation 100%. bison blood stain on the table.

rib section

tools of the trade: bone scraper, bull nosed scimitar, boning knife and butcher's twine.

bison shank.

beef as you've probably never seen it.

my new blades. victorinox. the bull nose is 12 inches. i am compensating for a lack of a girlfriend.

this is how butcher's get pigs before you get it cut down into primes and subprimes and placed on your dinner plate.

loins, hams.

BISON STRIPLOIN!

chicken as it should be. fenwood farms represent.

fieldgate organic meat, dry aged three weeks.

chicken stocks.

burgers.

bison shank again.

enough said. more to come soon.

conclusion to culinary school confidential part one

the weeks here at cordon bleu are winding down like unlucky geriatrics in the face of alzheimers. today i walked out of class and had a wonderful realization. in spite of the fact that i no longer own a pair of unbroken pants, the notion that my bank account is maxed out on all fronts, that my esthetic hygiene is a popular once a day topic amongst most of my friends...i can sorta cook french cuisine.

i'm no wunderkind heading for three michelin star success (just yet anyhow), but i know couple of things. I've begrudgingly learned how to brunoise a button mushroom with a dull knife, turn a grumpy potato with a hangover and hell, i've seared the heart of my most despised nemesis, the pigeon...AND I SERVED IT ON A BED OF FOIE GRAS. i have no qualms with gutting a fish, tasting raw chicken forcemeat for seasoning and i learned that if a steak ain't rare, a lamb aint rosè and a plate isn't hot...don't you dare let anyone else touch it. i've come to know cooking as something as second nature as eating or even breathing. i've spilled my own blood with knuckles grazing a flexible fish knife, i've earned a couple of burn scars as result of sleep deprivation and i've definitely felt the shame of screwing up a dish in front of a French chef more than once. i'm surprised that with my gross handle of the french language, i've made it this far and no one is more surprised than i am (three time high school drop out, one time university drop out, all around slacker).

it would be highly american of me to go home and write about my time at cordon bleu. i read a few pages of that sharper the knives are, the less you cry and well...you just need to flick on the USA food network to get the american celebrity approach to cuisine. i find it unnerving as the story generally has very little to do with the food. i think its an unfortunate thing when a person becomes the forefront of a little story called food. i think as a canadian, being so fucking polite and all, probably because i'm reminded on a daily basis by my yank cohorts that my country comes off as a funny joke that never fought in world war 2. give me strength. hypocrisy abounds. sue me. i couldn't write about school as a struggling hell hole because it simply isn't. there are some days which are harder than others, but for the most part, it has been incredibly inspiring. walking into a demonstration room filled with people that are talking food fucking exhilarating. its pretty much like a nymphomaniac walking into a sexaholics anonymous meeting. every word out of every person's mouth has something to do with technique, restaurants, chefs, flavours, compositions, you name it. aint no place like school. i would say its sad to leave, but im told im fairly incapable of feeling most common human emotion: i am after all a carnivorous sociofoiegraspath.

i'm about to be thrown into a first world that has a burgeoning appreciation for cuisine. its hard when that juxtaposes a third world that has a snowballing hunger for it. this results in a larger market with exponential price hikes. there's a flu that just finished its dress rehearsal and there's a curtain call set for autumn, countries with giant bombs continue to get sassier with one another, some insurgents are quietly plotting in dusty plains, the cradle of civilization might become our coffin and the lights of the global economy are but now flickering candles, nearly out of wax. and here i am, armed with a pair of well weathered wusthofs, turning to the one place where i find escape from the atrocities of the human condition: cooking. its a resting place for the flurry of horrific information i subject myself to in efforts to build an excuse to the question: hey joel how goes the dating circuit?

i haven't graduated, done my final exams or got the papers yet, but in less than a month, i'll be back on canadian soil looking to get gainfully employed as a line cook. i'll see you there.

now i'll shut my trap and let you kids check out the food i've been messing around with over the past month. bonne cuisine, mes amis. tabarnak esti.

i was so drunk at this dinner and i don't remember anything. but this was seasonal veg with a beetroot mousse. it was disgraceful. i told many women i loved them and didn't remember six or seven hours.

i remember this! success! this was a morel cream wrapped in spaghetti. what a novel idea. the restaurant was le doyen and its a three michelin star. we went here for our class meal. before i showed up i had already polished off a lot of cognac and tequila by accident.

this was a "french toast" sea bream with spinach, quennelles of a bitter caper salad with spinach, chicken jus and maple glazed chicken thighs. the tastes did not go together at all. however, we did get to use CANADIAN maple syrup. obviously i lost my isht.

just a normal sunday home breakfast with my roommate alex. scrambled eggs with goatcheese and cherry tomatoes, potatoes slow roasted in duckfat and a salad of rocket, citrus vinaigrette. this was leftovers from the following two dishes.

just a normal saturday evening meal with my roommate alex who is from dax, france. crispy fried duck confit with a gratin of zucchini and potato.

just a misanthropic salad of cocktail cherry tomatoes, olive brunoise, steamed white asparagus, a mustard lemon dressing.

i had a strong urge to make a baguette one night. im not good at pastry or things using flour that arent rouxs. instead of making individual baguettes, i said fuck it and made one as big as possible. i then spent the evening crying alone watching the last two tom cruise movies. and they sucked.

steak marinaded in red wine, shallots, soy and a bunch of other wonderful things; flan of beetroot, celeriac, apple and parmesan; parsley potato crisp; red wine jus, port reduction.

chef bean does it again and pulls a michael douglas with a crabmeat and shrimp cake in a little asparagus house with a citrus dressing. this is my chef at school's wonderful plating skill.

and just when yo thought michael douglas was dead, chef bean ressurects him in the form of this berry coulis with creme fraiche i think.

monkfish cooked on the bone with rosemary, served with oven dried tomatoes, veg spaghetti, herb jus, steamed artichokes and saffron turned potatoes.

my other roommate paula went on a surveying mission of sea turtles in venezuela and came back with a cacao plant!

FRESH CACAO! ITS THE BOMB

cacao plant and this wonderful venezuelan equivalent to baileys. its liquid chocolate and tastes like gold. they apparently drink it all the time after dinner. and apparently everyone in caracas owns a gun.

this may look disgusting, but its homemade crispy fries with LAMBURGERS covered in gouda cheese and fried eggs. it was off the fucking chain. think merguez gone wild.
lamburgers baby. heart attack city here i come.

this is the main plate for my second atelier. the ateliers are the tricky bastards where they give you a list of ingredients and you have to create your own pla. Veal tenderloin stuffed with vegetables, pancetta and pistachios, braised sweetbreads, shallot braised in port, artichoke and garlic flan, cauliflower puree and a tarragon and pistachio jus. port and veal stock reduction.

different style of plating. i over did my meat and i feel horrible. i can admit my mistakes.

my atelier appetizer. i got marked down for my shitty colour on this plate. i needed more beetroot brunoise. warm white asparagus, crispy leek rings, phyllo pastry stuffed with spinach, lemon, basil, spring onion and sea bream. a beetroot lemon fish stock vinaigrette. shitty plate.

school dish of tuna wrapped in bacon with some stupid turned vegetables and a citrus sauce with a honey port reduction
this is a guinea breast stuffed with a spicy chorizo forcemeat wrapped in bacon, with asparagus wrapped in bacon on a salad of chorizo chips and herbs with a sweet olive oil vinaigrette, cauliflower puree.

they had a giant bread festival for four days on ile de notre dame for no reason. it was crazy. wish you were here.this is my favourite chocolate shop in paris. this guy patrick roger makes these insane delicacies from chocolate and everything in the front of his shop is edible. he had one last month of a giant fat lady bending over with her skirt flying up to reveal her knickers. haha i just said knickers.
and now for some humor. i think all good cooks should be able to smile, laugh and realize when they fuck up big time. i present to you a pastry fail. it was late at night and i wanted something sweet and crunchy. i decided to make little shortbread quennelles. they flattened out into this giant shortbread cookie which actually just straight up tasted like sugar butter. it was hilarious. reasons why you should never ask me to bake you a cake. not only will i fuck it up, but i'll laugh at you for asking.

au revoir, a toute a l'heure, etc.
next time i post i'll be drinking a moosehead, smoking a belmont and sitting in a giant vat of maple syrup in a little place called toronto. i'll be post lots of leftover paris pics in the near future. time to go enjoy my last days in paris for now and graduate. thanks for reading.

stay up.

RUNGIS MARKET//FOOD AND SEX//probably my second most controversial post yet

disclaimer: the following post for the first while is filled with my usual fare of cordon bleu plates, random home cooking and cursory rants about tasty stuff that goes in your stomach. then, there are pictures of the largest market in the world. that market is called rungis. now, the reason i'm attaching a disclaimer is that there are some pictures that some people who are vegan, vegetarian and even carnivorous may find offensive from the meat and poultry section. so i'll give fair warning and probably post them at the end, but just a heads up. it's meaty. for real. i think while being the sole existential food blog, mine might be the sole blog to come with graphic content warnings. i'd also like to take one sentence of your time and plug my fiction blog which has nothing to do with food it can be reached at http://fictionbyjfb.blogspot.com


let's get offensive, shall we?
hangover.: check.
empty stomach.: check.
one month left in paris: check.

i figured i was due for another post because i have over three hundred pictures to choose from and a lot has been happening at school and with my culinary adventures in this city of spite. in the past month or so, i've had two atelier tests (creating your own app/entree menu from a list of buck wild ingredients), another year in my life passed me by and i went to a NOFX concert, got black out drunk at a three michelin star restaurant, visited the largest market in the entire world and woken up several consecutive mornings in a row alone in an empty bed. wah wah wah, everybody's got problems. my knee is bruised from mangling myself in the paris metro, my hair is unkempt and wild like a dead man's backyard and my tiny tummy growls to be fed. easy sailor, all in good time. nibble nibble nibble on some stale baguette.

before i get into covering this month in food, i'd like to talk about something i talked about with my roommate the other day concerning a dish. my roommate is from spain and her cooking repertoire when i first moved in was the spanish omelette and a case of beer. i was so down. anyhow, she's incredibly attentive in the kitchen and is always asking me what i'm doing and how i'm doing it. it's great because i get to practice my french when explaining a dish and she gets to pick up a few basic tricks. the one i've been trying to really hammer home with her is a tomato sauce. garlic, onion, italian herbs, tomatoes, tomato paste, balsamic, sugar and whatever kind of innovation i'm feeling at the time. i think it's one of the most important recipes to learn first because there's a lot of technique to pick up. i added lemon juice and liquid sugar cane to my last tomato sauce to deglaze the sweated onions and garlic before adding the rest of the ingredients and she asked why. so i had to explain that when you're making a dish or any kind of recipe you have to take into account the different flavours you're adding and what taste they will result in. i explained that i wanted bitter, sour and sweet playing off each other in the sauce. on the bitter side, we had the lemon, garlic and balsamic vinegar. on the sour, we had the acidity from the tomatoes. on the sweet side the liquid sugar cane. and then to give the rounding out, we always have salt in a dish. its the base, baby. you want to have a full bodied taste hitting your tongue, or a contrast of flavours, textures, etc. so, when i have trouble explaining anything with food, i make a very specific type of analogy. a sex analogy.

okay, so when you're on the market for a relationship, most people look for a standard set of principles. imagine a relationship like a full plate (because depending on the person and how many issues they have, it generally can be) and imagine a one night stand like a late night kebab or drive through mcdonalds. ouch! now sometimes, those little snacks hit the spot, but you wake up hours later feeling unsatisfied, unfulfilled, perhaps even a little guilty. but a relationship, you want that serious friendship, the great sex, the finishing each other's sentences, holding hands, emotional support, george clooney-julia roberts movieesque experience. you want the whole cheesy nine yards and the whole kit and caboodle, right? i mean hey, maybe like me, you think amour est mort (love is dead for those non frenchies out there) and the best thing is the quick slap and tickle in a motel six. but for those of you out there familiar with hope, dreams and a beautifully timed beating heart, than i'm sure on some level you understand.

when you're creating a plate, its the same thing kind of. you want a perfect marriage of flavours, an aesthetically pleasing composition and colour palette and you want everything on that plate to go together. in terms of the flavour, you want your tongue to be scintillated and excited by whatever is put on its tongue. reason number fifty six thousand why i'm still single: i'm in a long term and complex relationship with food.

i made my first loaf of french style bread a few days ago and i've done it several times over. its so easy to do and incredibly satisfying. plus, the aromas that fill your apartment...yegads! i also went to le doyen, a three michelin star by the petit palais, for my class meal: it was a shit show. it's a crying shame that i got so inebriated for such incredible food, but from what i remember it was exquisite. i bought my plane ticket home for my return to canada and french cuisine in trawna. i think i'm going to miss paris terribly, but it has been one of the most culturally enriching and head exploding times i've had in my brief existence. as a man all about the food, it's heaven. i'm going to miss the outdoor markets, the zany food advertisements, a group of people that everyday because their fridges are too small, the appreciation of great produce, the reverence of the food and hospitality industry and the notion that butter, wine and foie gras are panaceas. unfortunately for paris, this isn't the last time i'll be here. i'm already planning some wild trips over the next year to new york city, asia and then perhaps a return to europe...but i'm going to have to work my ass off for the next year to go to those places. dear french cuisine places hiring in toronto. hire me and i'll work until my fingers bleed, my heart stops and my eyes fall out of my skull.

i went to rungis market bright and early at six thirty on friday morning with my superior class at cordon bleu sporting aviators and a tangle of unwashed hair. after a bus ride filled with sex jokes and americanisms, we arrived at rungis. it looks like a desolate greyscape of boxes and trucks. that said, the place is fucking massive. we had to don protective overcoats and hats which my friend al and i immediately altered so we could pop our collars and turn the brim of our hats to the side. east side 4 lyfe. now, i don't think i can put into words how big this place is but our tour guide mentioned that fourteen thousand people work there everyday. its gigantic. now, i think its important as a person who eats meat to understand the process of food. the circle of life as it were. to be ignorant about where your food comes from i think is ridiculous. this isn't like the secrets of the universe like where do we come from and what does it all mean? its much simpler than that. i think that if you're going to be an honest carnivore you should know where your steak comes from and how it went from being a living organism to something cooked on your plate. i think visiting rungis took the bravado out of some of my fellow classmates lets kill some animals sails. it was a humbling experience to be surrounded by large cuts of beef, skulls, bones, etc. it reminded me of a colourful, better lit version of the catacombes. i jive with the whole native american tradition of respect when it comes to food. as a confused black sheep strayed far from the flock, i can't really pray to much or give thanks for such, but i do respect the hell out of the animal which died so i could eat. before any veggies jump down my throat: that's more than a lion would do for a gazelle, or a bear would do for a salmon, etc. anyhow, after walking through the meat market, we hit the vegetables. holy produce, batman. wall to wall fruit and veg. it was really colourful. the guys working there all looked like serial killers and hitmen. there's factory workers for you. i have over seventy pictures of the affair and i guess should only post the best ones. i'd like to preface these photos by saying i am a sick man with a bad heart and to be honest... i loved every fuckign second spent at rungis.

so here it is.
listen to this track immediately aka click here and open a new window:

HERES A PICTURE OF MY CLASS GETTING READY TO VISIT THE MARKET

HOLY SHIT. CHAMPIGNONS DE PARIS. DAMN

the whole place is overloaded with boxes of food

oh sweet marie. david deo, this one is for you
OKAY HERE IT COMES
THAT DISCLAIMER I TOLD YOU ABOUT?
WELCOME TO THE BOUCHERIE AND THE TRIPERIE
VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED
IT IS ABOUT TO GET
A LITTLE FUNHOUSE CREEPY

playtime at rungis market. one of the fourteen thousand people working that day playing hide and go seek.

all butchers are crazy fucks. i find it amazing.

I AM A SICKO and i also look like a five year old with a beard.

the gras that is foie and makes me go LA

OSTRICH? GET OUT OF TOWN

RESPECT. REPRESENT. CANADIAN BISON!!! BEST MEAT ON EARTH.

FIN another post of cordon bleu plates coming this week. my ateliers and other things. i think itll just be a pure picture post, but check back and it should be updated. have my final exam in two weeks.

FOIE GRAS IS PORN

the pope decreed a while back that there's no hell. following that papal logic, that would mean that there's no devil. and if there's no devil, then that means that this compelling satanic force driving me to the brinks of madness in the kitchen is influenced by something without explanation. today, dear readers, i served a squab heart (sauteed in foie gras butter) sitting atop of a seared slice of foie gras. i actually got to use my labeyre foie gras knife. there were black truffles involved. when did being so bad taste so goddamn good? the following is an admission from a foie gras lover. its graphic in detail and steamy love, and if you don't like to squirm, are a regular church goer or are wearing a pacemaker, i suggest you go read CNN or something safe like that. they'll take care of you and wrap you in trust. however, if you're of a tougher mettle, let's get intimate.



the following is a confession of a foie gras addict.

let's talk about foie fucking gras. its a thing that goes bump in your fridge and even the ponciest of food critics steer clear of it. but why? the mere mention of it causes a vegetarian´s eyes to well up with saltwater and their bottom lips to quiver. it is the most controversial act of foodism, next to cannibalism, on the face of the earth. oh foie gras. i'm told i'm a bad man with a dark heart on a fairly regular basis and while i can't, in good character, confirm these wild allegations, i will go out and say one thing about me that is true: i love foie gras without remorse and with forthright reckless abandon. i have drawn a line in the sand with my chef's blade.

now, why do i love this stuff? before i get into defending the glorious product, you should perhaps know why i cherish it so greatly. we've been using it in a whole bunch of our recipes lately and i've really come to appreciate it. the minute that goosey buttery goodness hits the cutting board, i'm like a catholic school girl at a hell's angels bar. mm mm mm. rack em up. if i had a choice between a life without foie gras and a life without love, i'd probably choose the latter because heartbreak is a bitch and you know what? foie gras doesn't leave you for your pool boy, darla, you cheating harlot.

i guess the first reason i like foie gras is the fact that some of you don't. its the same reason i got hooked on bands like the germs and the vandals because half the fun of it was that someone else would hear it and cringe. the music was also frigging terrific. my girlfriend's dead has become a staple excuse for me at parties. the more people despise or scorn a certain type of something, the more i love it. and conversely, the more people go ape shit over something as simple as corn or arugula, the more prone i am to detest it. stop celebrating corn. it's just corn. great on the cob, but doesn't need to accompany every dish with a mole. same reason it took me five years to build up the courage to listen to spoon alone in my room. anyhow, it's not safe, it's a dirty word and best of all: it's french. vive la france (their cuisine anyways).

which leads me to my next reason for loving it: it's french as hell. it is the first arm and fist on the holy trinity of french cuisine alongside butter and truffles. hot damn. i'm going to try and talk about food without getting pretentious and still keeping it to the beat of the rolling stones i have blaring. i'd use words like silky, resplendent and artifice but i'm not a "posh cunt" as they say in england. foie gras actually tastes to me what an orgasm would taste like if it were a food. that's right, it tastes like oxytocin. it hits your tongue, seeps into the buds like blotter acid and you see a heaven you never knew fucking existed. and wow, talk about a guy getting all purple prose on you over...liver? i apologize for the heavy handed language, but i really need to express to you what it's like. the sound of foie gras hitting a hot pan, that quick spit and squeak as it sears, and that caramelization...and all that glorious butter it leaves behind...i mean...it's...just...so...fucking...good.

the third reason of the trifecta of reasoning (i work in threes...thats what she said), it´s way too rich for my blood. think prince and the pauper, think oliver twist, think fuck hinn and all those mark twain and dickensian (yeah didnt think it was a word either...some dick lit teacher i had back in the day used it) poor young bastard characters staring all forlorn like into the window of say a Fauchon, salivating, hot breath hitting the glass as they stare right into the beautiful cut of a strawberry infused foie gras terrine. it has been requested that at this juncture in my blog i must write: big fat donkey dicks because my friend josh aka the governor has requested it. anyhow, i can't afford foie gras, so when i do get it, it's like that christmas your special someone lets you do that special something you only get to do once a year (for me its tapdance naked in the snow). i don't think i'll ever get the chance to eat it on a regular occasion because i have signed myself over to the industry of the underpaid and the underappreciated and that's okay by me. i never want to be that rich or successful or else i'd have too much of a good thing and that my friends is not good.

though i doubt there are many of you out there who haven't already built up an opinion on foie gras, lemme give a little background to the best of my ability. foie gras is translated fat liver, which would be a sweet band name. HOW ARE WE DOING NEW JERSEY! WE'RE FAT LIVER LET IT RAIN BLOOD. not really, now that i think about it. it is the liver of a goose (or duck) that has been force fed through a process known in french as gavage. which is the process of forcefeeding a goose a mash of grains and corn. this happens about half a month to a month before slaughter about two to five times per day. the goose is slaughtered, the liver removed and then we have ourselves a nice healthy foie gras entier. that's french for awesome. now in traditional french farms (which account for over seventy percent of the world's foie gras production), there is free range goose farming AND special care taken of the animals to avoid injury or death...that is before...their livers get nice and plump. ho ho ho. but french farmers are not crazed demons out to squelch the life out of living creatures for shits and giggles. hell no.

and now, they're coming out with humane "foie gras". it isnt actually foie gras because the french say so. and i'm going to side with them on this one. i haven't tasted it but i'm sure its equally as good. you can look it up if you like. if you're feeling extremely ethical, look up the spanish producer: sousa.

people really get torn up over it. then they go vote in politicians who force feed their irreverent cocks into the mouths of prostitutes under the veil of moonlight and secret service protection. they wear nikes made by crippled cambodian children. they preach to the choir and there's an earthquake and thousands die and where are they on that? they do hit and runs, the cheat, they maim, they break your heart time and time again until there's nothing left of you and they rape, they murder each other in the streets, in cold blood and...when i happen to pay a guy who pays another guy to force feed a duck and give me the duck's liver...i get an earful of YOU FUCKING MURDERER. um...where's the love? i didn't go out and rape nan king, i just had some foie gras. i won't go out and say that animal slaughter is a cosy and lovely business. in fact, i don't think there's enough education of the masses on how their food is made, how they get it and how a pig goes from being babe to being broiled. and i know people have their "solid and just" reasons to hate us foie gras consumers, but...have you ever seen a lion kill a gazelle mid sprint? or a spider eat a fly? ever watch the discovery channel or see those david attenborough flicks?

we are now entering the realm where philosophical backgrounds of a person enter into what they eat. i'll keep it short. i am a glutton, excuse the pun, for food knowledge. i'm no expert and i hold no esteemed degrees (except for a couple from culinary school), but i'm of the belief that the animal kingdom (which includes us, so get off the high horse or whatever speed you've been taking) is fucked up and it ain't so bad. it's not genocide or a female praying mantis biting a male's head off. there are some people who are absolutely to the extreme and decree a life is a life is a life, but in the end, how much does it all matter? this is where the existential dilemma comes in. never argue with an existentialist about life because he or she will always answer back WELL NOTHING FUCKING MATTERS ANYWAYS. what i'm saying isn't an attack on people who don't like or eat foie gras (live your life according to your own rules, i figure...just don't stab a person in broad daylight...that ain't classy), but its more in defense.

so colour me fucked up, i like force fed duck liver. sorry...that was a typo. i fucking love foie gras to motherfucking bits. i'm the boogeyman! blah! so sue me, it'll be like fucking cum out of a brick wall. and fellow carnivores that eat beef tartar yet castigate me for liking a little sliver of foie gras with my toast? i think you're like a doctor with a harsh smoker's cough telling me to find a new hobby. my road to a heart attack has a foundation of butter, it´s cobbled with truffles and all the city is sculpted out of foie gras. this liver, borne of hellfire in a land of controversy...please let me faceplant into it. and in slumber, some people dream of a nation holding truths to be self evident, a nation where all men are created equal...but i don't. i'm a realist. people are savages created to tear each other apart. it's in their nature to divide, conquer, hate and destroy. see, i'm not disillusioned or jaded, oh no...i dream too. i just dream of a world where it rains truffles and there's a room, where i can sit down and have a piece of seared foie gras on toast without the scathing criticism or scorn. foie gras...is porn. nay...foie gras is the best sex i ever had.



chef p. with a big hunk of goodness. thats what she said.



chef beans glorious plate.




THAT IS CHEF BEAN IN ACTION WITH TONS OF WOODLAND SHROOMS. OH HEAVEN!



some morels for y'all.



a blurry picture of the thing that gets my heart racing.



chefs plate. nice one bean.




the two above are plates i did in class. on that little wafer thing (brik pastry) is a slice of foie gras with a squab heart cooked in foie gras butter. there is a chanterelles, morels, tromps de mort and cepes mushroom puree in the other brik pastry. the cabbage is wrapped around a forcemeat of chicken and foie gras, slices of foie gras, squab breast done rare and a slice of black truffle. leaned up against it is a stuffed squab leg. and beside that, a little thigh braised in veal stock and sauteed in port reduction. on the plate is a squab juniper jus with a port squab jus reduction.



thats marscapone and herbs with a gourmet tomato juice...fancy shit, chef!



worn by the members of the cordon bleu renegade three musketeers: the governor, big sexy and sweet sweet joel.