Bountiful Brant

Brantford, Ontario has been getting even more serious when it comes to identifying locally grown food, ever since bananas and oranges started showing up at 'Buy Local! Buy Fresh' designated farmers’ markets. So a group of local farmer’s wives banded together (they know who grows what around these lolling farmlands) and together they go into participating restaurants to do Bountiful Brant inspections.

The Homestead Café passes muster, especially so when they make their famous strawberry rhubarb pie each summer, while the Blue Dog’s apple fritters are made from apples from the orchard just down the road.

The ‘Bountiful Brant Buy Local! Buy Fresh’ map is available at locations throughout Brantford and the surrounding areas, leading you directly to farm gates and retail outlets listed by farmers, be they meats, vegetables or fruits.

Here’s a simple springtime rhubarb recipe from an Ontario town that pushes up its sleeves, knocks on doors, and makes sure that buying local is truly all that it's meant to be.

Rhubarb Crisp

Ingredients:

4 cups rhubarb, chopped

2/3 cup white sugar

1/2 cup flour

1/8 tsp salt

3/4 cup rolled oats

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

Method:

1. Mix together rhubarb and sugar and leave at room temperature in an 8 x 8 pan for 30 minutes.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, salt, rolled oats, brown sugar and butter together and sprinkle over rhubarb. Bake in 350 oven for 40 - 50 min.

From the archives

Seeing as I’m knee deep in Passover this week, I’ve decided to take a look back at a Semitic-tinged story I wrote for enRoute magazine a couple of years ago: Forget Screech and cod. Kosher wine and gefilte fish are Newfoundland's hot new exports.

But before you get reading about that, here are two recent stories written by others, in which I have a wee guest role. First up, the horseradish tasting I participated in for A. Brouwer & A. Wilson's monthly Shelf Life column in the National Post. It was pretty funny stuff as we were totally dying during the tasting: Some of the horseradishes were beyond hot (read: Totally addictive.) Gotta get me some of that hot Kozliks!

It just so happens that the day that story came out, I was sitting in Caplansky’s, elbow deep in gefilte fish during the first annual Gefilte Fish Derby (round three of Battle of the Bubbies). A few of us were judging both peppery and sweet versions of this uniquely nostalgic dish, and Jennifer Bain, who was trying it for the first time (and against all odds, liked it) wrote about the event here.

At Caplansky's, not only did I learn that my friend Joanna’s mom, Andrea Sugar, now officially makes the best gefilte fish in Toronto, but that Caplansky’s has the best cheese cake in town. And apparently, award-winning Andrea Sugar has agreed to share her recipe with Zane Caplansky -- so soon enough they'll have the best gefilte fish in town, too.

Kosher Quality (from enRoute magazine)

A rabbi, a Newfoundlander and a fish walk into a bar... Why Newfoundland's burgeoning kosher industry is no joke.

BY AMY ROSEN

“Over-Gefilte-Fishing Sparks Greenpeace Cry for Gefilte-Fishing Moratorium” is the fairly hilarious headline on a fake news story I read recently, the joke being that gefilte fish is not a fish but in fact a traditional Jewish “delicacy” fashioned from chopped pickled carp covered in aspic and studded with boiled carrot. (Think of it as a cod cake in a yarmulke.) I recall this joke as I drive toward Fair Haven, Newfoundland, on a sunny spring afternoon, where everywhere I look there’s nothing but marble-blue ponds and rolling hills that will eventually tumble into the great Atlantic. I remember this joke because not only am I driving through the land of fish moratoriums, but I’m also headed toward Neptune Sea Products – Atlantic Canada’s only kosher-sanctioned secondary fish-processing plant, with a pit stop at the country’s only kosher winery.

Here in cod’s land, Bond Rideout Jr. leads me on a tour of his kosher processing plant, bought just a year ago, with gleaming white walls, concrete floors, high ceilings and stainless-steel everything else. I see hundreds of capelin, the tiny iridescent fish that start rolling into nearby coves during springtime, smoked and resting on racks.

“There’s no question that kosher is growing,” Rabbi Chaim Goldberg tells me over the phone from New York, in a voice that’s a cross between Jackie Mason and my cousin Irv. Goldberg is a Rabbinic Coordinator at the non-profit Orthodox Union (OU), the authority that, among other things, stages surprise inspections of kosher-certified institutions to make sure that everything’s, well, kosher. “As the world is getting more global, manufacturers in places that have never seen a Jew before, and may never see a Jew, see kosher as a very easy way to market their product.”

It’s a US$14-billion-a-year business in North America, say the reps at Manischewitz, the king of the kosher brands.

Newfoundland’s Neptune has secured a bissel of that kashruth pie by producing some 200 different products, from wasabi salmon to Cajun cod. Rideout figures Neptune Sea Products’ sales will top $2-million this year.

Typically, people have their own ideas of what kosher means, with “healthy,” “clean” and “pure” being common descriptors. While the A-okay from a mashgiach – the specially trained kosher inspector – has more to do with complex Talmudic and biblical laws than idyllic coastal scenes, even the non-observant perceive the OU symbol as a standard of excellence.

Local fishermen bring in all the codfish, mackerel and herring. Smoked salmon – cold-smoked on-site in one of six large smoker rooms, using a secret 400-year-old recipe from the Isle of Man – is the bestseller. “We only use fish that have fins and scales,” Rideout explains. “The other main thing is, my employees can’t bring in ham sandwiches for lunch.”

Danny Bath, a former fisherman who does research and development for Neptune, has just perfected a line of spreads that he’d like me to try. The cream cheese-based shmears are reminiscent of every happy Jewish brunch table I’ve ever noshed at, all smooth and creamy with an intoxicating natural wood-smoke finish. I almost single-handedly polish off two tubs, yet still want more. Products this good cross religious and cultural lines.

After leaving the plant, I drive about 15 minutes down a rural road to the Rodrigues Winery in Markland, where Hilary and Marie-France Rodrigues rolled out their first batch of fruit wine in 1993. This being Newfoundland’s first winery, the government ended up applying the same regulations as for a dairy: You couldn’t put milk in barrels, so you couldn’t put wine in barrels. In the end, the nonsensical rules that had forced the Rodrigueses to ferment their fruit wines in stainless-steel double-lined milk tanks made it easier to be kosher, as part of the process involves letting water boil in the tanks for a certain amount of time. The result: a tasty niche product and the only kosher and sulphite-free winery in Canada.

Rodrigues Winery now produces 12,000 cases a year, and its bottles are found on wine lists in restaurants like Bacalao in St. John’s to as far away as Japan. Made from hand-picked fruit, the kosher quaffs come in a dozen varieties, including local blueberries, cranberries and indigenous cloudberries harvested from creeping plants found on the northern peat bogs of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Rodrigueses’ son, Lionel, leads me through a wine tasting. The blackcurrant wine tastes of pure local blackcurrants. The strawberry reminds me of the real thing – like juicy summer strawberries, not strawberry candy. Lionel says they’ve also held wine tastings at the Beth El synagogue in St. John’s, but when I ask if he’s heard that old joke about Jews not being big drinkers, he looks puzzled.

“Really?” he says. “At the temple tastings they seem to drink.” Then he takes another thoughtful sip of his kosher blueberry wine and concludes, “But then again, we’re all Newfoundlanders.”

Snacksapalooza

One of the things I like about working at Canadian House & Home magazine, is that over in the wee editorial section we have what's called Snack Thursdays, and it’s fairly serious stuff. There’s a schedule for it and everything, and god forbid you forget it’s your turn and show up empty handed, everyone will ignore you and Katie G. will tear you a new one.

I think Kimberley B. is the unofficial snack queen, as she’s a great baker and usually finds a way to swirl cream cheese into her treats (always a good idea.) Gwen usually dials it in (Timbits, Gwen. Really?) But all in all it’s always enjoyable and breaks up the Thursday doldrums.

And now for some late-breaking news about a totally new, snacky site: The girls over in design also enjoy their afternoon treats, so much so that Leslie and Jenn have just launched a handy blog that I’m sure is going to take the snack-loving Internet by storm.

As for the National Nosh, I’ve blogged about snacks many times before, such as here, here, here and here. Here too. And lest we forget, here? That said, I’m always open to new snack discoveries, and look forward to visiting the gals in design, both a few steps away in the office, and now freshly minted, on the Internet at Work Snacks.

Finally, Passover, that most unleavened of Jewish holidays, starts on Monday, so please be kind to your Jewish friends all next week, even if they're acting more grumpy than usual. (They're probably a little constipated.) Or, go one step further and bring a smile to their punims by making this totally tasty Passover snack.

Snack of the day

I was in NYC last week, visiting with friends then attending a conference, but darn it if I didn't partake of some of the great street food Manhattan has to offer. With everything from falafel to tacos on four wheels, the best new snack I tried was a bag of warm roasted coconut chunks covered in caramelized sugar.

I'm going to figure out how to make these nutty, crunchy, soft and sweet bites of heaven (because I must. Have. More. Right. Now) and will get back to you with a recipe. In the meantime, if you happen to know how to make them, please. Tell. Me. Now.

Eat Here: Earls Toronto

How many times have I been to Vancouver? Twenty times? Thirty? Seven? I actually have no idea, but what I do know is that every time I'm there I spot an Earls restaurant, and I wonder about it.

I wonder what hold this West Coast-sprung restaurant chain has on the denizens of Vancouver. I wonder why a day doesn't go by that a Left Coaster doesn't bring up a pasta dish, a burger, dessert or some fond memory that happened at Earls. And now with my Ask Amy column in House & Home magazine, whereby readers write in requesting favourite restaurant recipes, I get weekly emails from people asking for specific Earls recipes. Note to those people: Earls will not divulge any of their "secret" recipes.

So, weighing all the aforementioned evidence, I obviously started thinking that Earls was putting drugs in their food. And even with that impetus, I still never ate there. Too many other great restaurants crammed into fleeting Vancouver visits. Too little inclination. I was interested on one level, but turned off on another.

Then came news that Earls was launching a huge restaurant in Toronto's Financial District, just a few city blocks from where I work. And then came the invite to the tasting party prior to the big opening, mere blocks from where I work. And you know what? I went. And you know what else? Very tasty!

I loved the look of the place, a big bold T.O. meets West Coast 10,000 square foot statement, where steel and glass meet stone and marble. Locally grown and seasonal produce cooked from scratch is what they specialize in; from burgers to sushi to steaks, signature sandwiches and hip-worthy desserts. Fantastic wine list mulled over iPads, fun cocktails, and even a Toronto-specific house brew. Little wonder the place has been packed since day one.

And now I don't have to fly all the way to Vancouver to be annoyed by people who won't shut up about how great Earls is.

Springtime! (Um, hello?)

If you live in Toronto you'll know that Old Man Winter and Jack Frost played a bit of a joke on us this week (and I've got a sneaking suspicion Mother Nature had something to do with it too), when they dumped a foot of snow on our fair city, just as I was beginning to take my undiagnosed springtime allergy pills again.

But they can't stop the asparagus from coming up, those tasty green and white spears are like vegetal clockwork, letting us know that spring has finally arrived, especially in Germany, where Spargelsaison rivals Christmas.

I just had my first batch of the year, white meaty, butter-poached white spears, at Nota Bene, imported from Holland, topped with a smack-your-mama Hollandaise sauce. They were awesome, and at $19 for four spears, they were also worth their weight in gold. (Money saving tip: make your own easy Hollandaise here.)

If spring won't truly come, at least we can fake it with a taste of it.

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.

Three-star eats

This photo is of one of the 369 appetizers I ate while on a recent trip to Baiersbronn, Germany, researching a story I’m writing for enRoute magazine.

Part of the trip involved eating at Michelin starred restaurants, with each meal clocking in at roughly 4.5 hours. Very time consuming and filling! But also, surprisingly fun. (And obviously, totally delish.) You can read all about my experiences sometime later this year (if you choose), but in the meantime I can tell you this: I was stunned by how approachable three-star Michelin dining could be. Sure, the service was over the top, yet at the same time, sort of personable and chummy. The food was impeccable, out of this world, but not of the heavy old-world playbook I had been expecting.

That’s all I’ll say for now, as I fear I’ve already said too much, yet I still feel compelled to finish with this tip: You can dine at three-star Michelin restaurants in Baiersbronn, for as little as $185 euros per person. Compare that with what a three-star would cost you in Paris (eg. Guy Savoy is at least double that), which is probably why there were so many Viennese and Parisians filling the gleaming German dining rooms.

Imagine: A flight to Frankfurt then a speedy two-hour train ride, and you’re in the Black Forest eating a five-hour meal.

Guten Appetit!

Change is delicious

I just realized that I’m about eight months into my first-ever office job, more than beating the odds set by most of my family and friends, who figured I’d last about two minutes in an office.

“You’ll have to set an alarm in the morning,” they cautioned.

“Everyone will hate you,” they warned.

“You’re not as funny as you think you are,” they said.

“What does my inherent hilarity have to do with working in an office?” I asked.

“Nothing. We just thought you should know that you’re not that funny.”

Either way, I’m still here, as Food Editor at House & Home magazine, and pretty much loving it. It sure helps that my co-workers are that winning combo of smart, funny and nice. And Snack Thursdays in the editorial department have turned out to be an unexpected boon. Also, being able to work here part time while continuing on with my freelance gigs is just what the doctor ordered.

We’ve been getting great feedback on the food features, and so far Lynda hasn’t fired me. And Suzanne must have some faith in me too, because as of May there will be a bigger and better stand-alone food section in the magazine for the first time ever. (Psst! It looks great.)

I’m also pretty excited about the April issue (it hits stands in about a week), as it features a bunch of incredible recipes from Milos restaurant. Quite a coup (if I do say so myself), including the Milos Special, which ranks as one of the single best things I have ever eaten in a restaurant.

I have to say that this job, this change, has been good for me. I’m learning new skills every day, especially at the photo shoots where I'm left in awe of the creativity of our food and prop stylists, like Ashley and Sasha. (By the way, Ashley is a man, and those are his hairy knuckles in the photo, not mine.)

So it turns out my family and friends had nothing to worry about after all: I may just make it to a year.

And by the way, my new office friends think I’m hilarious.

Eat here: Satteleihuette

This is a meal from one of four huts in the Baiersbronn hiking region, deep within Germany's Black Forest. The "hut" is a gorgeous post and beam structure, while the menu of traditional local food is carved into wooden menus; your order then served by smiling women in dirndls.

The fire burned brightly as both hikers and villagers out for a stroll, put down their walking sticks and picked up glasses of beer and Riesling, and forks with which to dig into plates of traditional ravioli sided by creamy potato salad, beef soup, meatballs, and apple cake with whipped cream.

You know, a nice light lunch.