A photo and 1,200 words

I can’t believe it’s already been ten years since my (then) enRoute editor Arjun had a short meeting with me on a sunny Montreal patio with the idea that I should: “Eat across Canada and do my thing.” Seriously, those were his full instructions.

From there, together we did resto research and amassed our first panel of food writers who recommended the best new places I should eat in their hometowns. Then we booked me into Holiday Inns across the country (the one true mistake of that trip), and off I went.

Were we overly ambitious that first year? Seeing as I ate at over 50 restaurants during a month of travelling, some days hitting two cities and eating two three-course meals per day -- I'd say yes. And did I have to buy a new pair of jeans by the time I had rounded the west and was headed back east to Montreal? Indubitably.

But it was good, tasty fun that I wouldn't have changed for the world, then I did it again the following year and then I was full.

I still write regularly for enRoute and in fact have a feature in the splashy new Food Issue, which hits seatbacks November 1st. This is the story that matches this photo (though do try to snag a hard copy of the magazine for all the sumptuous photos, spirited stories and lovely layouts).

I've been wanting to tell people about the great Black Forest region called Baiersbronn, which I visited in March, and now that the November issue is out I can finally yammer on about it.

Know that this is a place you should definitely visit, and an area I plan to return to. Not just because it’s easy to get to and gorgeous and your Michelin-starred dollars go far and the spas are incredible and the hotels and service are peerless. But also because the people are nice and the Black Forest cake is to die for. I travel a lot, maybe too much because it's becoming rarer for a place to surprise and enchant as much as Baiersbronn did.

I'm telling you, it really knocked my lederhosen off.

Burgers in Bouludland

I'm kind of busy but also feeling kind of dopey and allergetic (instead of energetic), so this week let's dip into the well for a food story I wrote a few years ago for enRoute magazine that ended up being featured in the "Best Food Writing 2008" anthology. I was reminded of this story recently, when I read this amazing piece in the Atlantic, which basically calls out the Best Food Writing anthologies as a blight on humanity. Even so, I agree with about 81% of B.R. Myers' argument.

Someone’s in the Kitchen with Daniel

A private cooking lesson with Daniel Boulud shows why he’s cut out to be a French chef – and you’re not.

Here’s why Daniel Boulud’s burger is better than yours: Ordering the original DB Burger served at the chef’s Manhattan restaurant, DB Bistro Moderne, buys you ground sirloin stuffed with succulent braised short ribs, foie gras and preserved black truffle, made to order on a freshly baked Parmesan bun. The accompanying pommes frites, served in a parchment-lined silver cone, taste more potatoey than any fries I’ve had before.

Momentarily lost in the reverie that is love at first bite, meat juice dripping clear past my watchband, I realize too late that I’m actually meant to use a fork and knife to eat the thing, like the businessmen surrounding me who also wisely removed their suit jackets in anticipation. “Yes, that is what most people do,” volunteers my waiter as I lick my elbows clean.

Bottom line: Daniel Boulud is an evil genius – and if this burger were single and Jewish, I would marry it. In what must be a culinary first, the superthick stuffed patty sees the shredded short ribs actually cutting the fattiness of the foie and sirloin. What’s more, the short rib stuffing involves numerous steps, the most impressive being pouring three bottles of dry red wine into a saucepan and then setting it aflame. Boulud has taken an essential yet basic piece of Americana and spirited it into a technique-driven masterpiece.

Boulud’s pantry is stocked, like most in his culinary bracket, with the cream of the seasonal crop, a legacy perhaps of being raised on the family farm in Lyon. But it’s the way the chef handles his raw materials with a neurosurgeon-like attention to detail that must be the secret ingredient. This becomes clear after witnessing him at work during a private cooking lesson, post-burger. I’m here to learn how he transforms something even more pedestrian than the humble beef patty. I mean, it’s one thing to make an easy crowd-pleaser like his oft-copied haute burger, but it’s another thing altogether to make a potato and leek soup into, well, soupe.

I meet him in the small catering kitchen of Daniel, his flagship restaurant, just down the hall from the gleaming service kitchen. Boulud arrives wearing a pristine chef’s jacket, a perfect suntan and a Cheshire grin. I instantly deem him charming, creative and meticulous. In short, he’s a French chef. (And no offence to the burger, but if he were single and Jewish, I’d marry him too.)

We set to work on a cold potage Parisien purée with sorrel. “First, you make a soup with potato and leeks and good chicken stock. And then, separately, you blanch Boston lettuce and sorrel in salted water.” He squeezes out the water. “Then you boil a little bit of cream. Et voilà. ” Boulud pours it all into an industrial-grade blender and sticks his spoon into the running blender, which ranks as the second most dangerous thing I’ve ever witnessed. He adds salt and pepper – “always be seasoning” – a little more stock for that bull’s eye consistency, and then he sticks his finger into the moving blender for a taste, which is, hands down, the most dangerous thing I’ve ever witnessed. After the chartreuse-coloured soup is strained and cooled, he dollops a fluffy cloud of whipped cream atop the bowl, explaining that the quality of the ingredients, the seasonality and the technique make even a simple dish sublime.

But he’s not done yet. “And now we have some caviar floating on the cream,” he says (of course we do), at which point he starts spoon-feeding me his own line of Caspian osetra straight from the tin. Then the chef employs such gravitas while meticulously arranging fresh sorrel leaves and wee homemade melba rounds around the bowl’s outsize rim that I’m just waiting for him to pull out a ruler and calipers. Meanwhile, the cream and caviar gently loll atop the soup before slowly creeping over it like delicious sea foam. “ Et voilà! ” We both sneak a spoonful. Mmmm.

Sensing the caviar boosts the bottom line and recalling the price of my lunchtime burger ($32), I ask the chef how much he would charge for this lovely potage if it were on the menu. And with that, he laughs the laugh of a man who’d charge $90 for a bowl of soup.

I’m capping off my day in Bouludland on the other side of the kitchen door. The look of Daniel is that of a typical Park Avenue building built in the 1920s: columns and pilasters, velvet settees in the lounge and well-spaced tables in the dining room. It’s like entering a fancy restaurant scene in a big-budget movie, and, before long, I start to feel like Marie Antoinette as a stable of liveried servers refolds napkins, refills champagne flutes and presents us with a three-tiered silver tray of amuse-bouches to start. I half expect them to slip off my boots and start fitting me with bespoke Parisian footwear.

Following a remarkable dinner and the chariot des fromages, a series of desserts is upon us, including a vacherin à la violette, canneberges et litchis that is almost too beautiful for words. Dressed in a pastel-coloured frock of teardrop meringues, it is delicate, sweet and crunchy… By my count, it incorporates no fewer than seven textures, three temperatures and a dozen delightful flavour components, including, I suspect, marshmallow.

Just as I’m marvelling at the artistry of the thing, Daniel Boulud, who’s been working the room in his chef’s whites, approaches the table, still sporting that Cheshire grin. All I can think is, this is one happy man. He’s using an impeccable foundation of technique and inherent talent to turn meringue into magic and burgers into bliss. Something like that would make me happy, too.

Especially if I could charge 90 bucks for a bowl of soup.

And the winners are...

The year we launched enRoute magazine's Canada’s Best New Restaurants feature, I was nominated for a James Beard Award in the category of best restaurant critique (any time I can mention that award I do), and was up against Alan Richman at GQ, which is where I met him, which made the whole evening worthwhile even though we both lost to some bitch from Bon Appetit.

After two years of eating, my friend Chris Johns took over the reigns, criss-crossing the nation for five or six years, and he did a great job at it. Now comes Sarah Musgrave, and in some small way I’m glad there’s a woman at the table again. You know; a little more salad, a little less pork belly. Plus, she’s an awesome writer, and the author of the bestselling Montreal restaurant guide, Resto A Go-Go.

Between Sarah’s words and the photos by Virginia Macdonald, who shot our big turkey dinner in the current issue of House & Home, this year’s November food issue looks amazing.

I was a panelist again, meaning I handed in a mitt-full of restaurant picks that I had eaten at over the course of the year that I considered to be contenders for the top spots. I happened to mention to Sarah, while we dined on a so-so meal at Ame (during her summertime cross-Canada chowdown) that, having visited Haisai, I honestly couldn’t see anyone beating out chef Michael Stadtlander's dreamy new restaurant.

Fast-forward to this week.

Soon after the awards were announced, Sarah came clean: “Okay, Amy, you bit your tongue but I could see it in your eyes, and I do recall you said something like. "I mean, just the decor alone..." Still, you have to experience it to believe it.” I couldn't agree more. She says that Haisai is total woodlands fantasy, and that the food is so real, so grounded in place. “I found it incredibly intimate and masterful - that ham! That ham! – it's like being invited to take part in Stadtlander's creative process.” And that's what makes him Michael Stadtlander.

For the first time, enRoute is trying out a live chat about the Top 10 restaurants on Monday, Nov. 1 at 11 a.m. - fun stuff because the public can pose questions to two lovely ladies: Sarah Musgrave and enRoute’s editor-in-chief, Ilana Weitzman. Click on this link to sign up.

Bagels and Cream Cheese in Paradise

There’s no denying that with the holiday decorations up, latkes in the frying pan, local parks being flooded for skating rinks, and Leon’s circa 1989 “Ho Ho Hold the Payments” commercials back for their annual rotation, winter is in the air.

And to many Canadians, nothing says winter more than Florida. So, as a bit of a departure from the norm here at the National Nosh, I present one of my favourite stories that I’ve written. (Is it gross to say that? Am I allowed to admit that?)

Herewith, a taste of the good life in Fort Lauderdale.

The Early Bird Gets the Flanken

By Amy Rosen, enRoute magazine

“I don’t know…the coffee makes me jittery.”

“Put water in it.”

“I don’t know…”

“Try it. Just put water in it.”

“Why doesn’t she try the decaf?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Then try the water.”

Overheard at Flakowitz in Boynton Beach, Florida.

They’re popular and they’re cheap. So why are Early Bird Specials only frequented by retirees of a certain age? Isn’t this something we should all take advantage of now instead of waiting a few decades? This is my thinking as I enter Pomperdale New York Style Deli in Fort Lauderdale.

I’ve officially begun my research into Early Birds – cut-rate dinners served between 3:30 p.m. and 5:45 p.m. – by eating a crack-of-dawn breakfast. Located in a strip mall, Pomperdale is a seemingly members-only deli with low ceilings and wood panelling. Its tightly packed tables are occupied almost exclusively by Jewish blue hairs eating lightly toasted sesame bagels. These are my people, and this is our de facto Promised Land. I am confident they will help me in my Early Bird quest.

We take our seats and wait a few moments for menus to be delivered. “Oy, so cute!” shouts one to the rest. “They thought someone was going to serve them!” Five minutes in, and the Pomperdale clan has already labelled me adorable. “It’s a crazy kind of place here,” explains another. “You order upfront, pour your own coffee, wrap up your leftovers and pay when you leave.”

I do make several attempts to pour my own coffee, but a number of the Pomperdalians insist on doing this for me – and this, even before I’ve wooed them with my prowess at canasta. Everyone here knows everyone: It’s like Cheers for the geriatric set, albeit with no booze and a lot more Yiddish. Most Early Birds, they tell me, include a starter, main course, cold beverage (they ding you extra for coffee) and dessert – a huge amount of food for about US$12.95. “And you can take home whatever you don’t finish,” someone proudly announces.

As I dig into scrambled eggs with Nova lox and onions that are a bisl cold and salty, and served on a paper plate with a plastic fork – not that I’m complaining mind you – one woman suddenly pokes me and shouts, “They have the best chicken soup here! Oh my God, out of this world!” But there’s a trick, she explains, now employing a whisper that is somehow louder than her speaking voice. “You order the matzo ball separately. That way, there’s no displacement of the soup!” I love this woman. When I ask her opinion on the best Early Birds in South Florida, the entire Pomperdale clan launches into a sort of vaudevillian act:

“J. Alexander’s, Houston’s, Sage…"

“Do you like Italian? Bongusto is delicious.”

“But they’re closed on Mondays.”

“Charley’s Crab near Oakland Park…”

“Do you like fish? 15th Street Fisheries is very nice – a little expensive, but excellent service.”

Later in the day, I head to 15th Street Fisheries, a legendary Early Bird eatery where they offer Sunset Dinners on the Waterfront between 5 p.m. and 5:45 p.m. Located at the Lauderdale Marina, it has a waterside setting that’s flawless, but the room has seen better days – say, back in the early 1980s. Still, for those who frequent Early Birds, the deal is more important than the decor or the food. Just like golf, schmaltz and shopping, it’s a way of life.

At $18.95, the Pomperdalians were right that the 15th Street Fisheries’ Early Bird is pricier than most. But it gets you, among other things, the Fisheries salad: iceberg lettuce tossed with sliced strawberries, slivered almonds, crumbled bacon and baby shrimp, all coated in a sweet creamy dressing that proves that the grossest sounding combinations are often the tastiest. Other high notes include an inspired intermezzo of ginger-orange sorbet and “bread girl” Meagan’s sunflower-wheat and jalapeno-cheddar offering. After dinner, at 5:57 p.m., a woman with a towering blond bouffant and a yellow sweater with sequined panda bears brushes her teeth in the bathroom. She swooshes and spits, then turns to me. “They really give you a nice piece of fish here.”

Another day, I visit Flakowitz, a deli and bakery in Boynton Beach with 70-year-old “bread boys.” It’s a home away from home for Jewish snowbirds who make sure they’re seated by 4:30 p.m. for the Early Bird, which entitles them to precisely $1 off the main course.

We order chicken soup (matzo ball on the side, please), cabbage rolls and blintzes. Dinner arrives exactly two minutes later and the bill, a minute after that. Don’t get me wrong. This abrupt service isn’t insulting; that’s just the way it’s done here. Why wait when you could be eating? Why linger when you could be playing shuffleboard?

The soup – the colour of a young hen – is wonderful, and the matzo ball, properly yielding. The cheese blintzes have a crispy exterior with a warm, vanilla-scented filling. The cabbage rolls are sweet and sour, just like my boobie used to make. All told, it’s the real deal.

I have to admit that the food tastes pretty good. Still, despite the deals, I think for now I’m willing to pay the extra buck to finish off the workday before heading to dinner. But a few decades from now – God willing – I can imagine myself here, kibitzing with pals. Like the woman a few tables away, resting her foot on a chair. Although she appears to be in agony, but all accounts she’s prone to histrionics.

“Oooh, oooooh,” Mary groans.

“What’s the matter with you?” Sol asks, with fake concern.

“Oohhh, I started limping yesterday.”

“Well, you’re limping better today.”

I should only be so lucky.