Hungry In Hogtown

Wingin' it: tofu, Buffalo-style

On a recent episode of 30 Rock, Gavin Volure, a reclusive business tycoon played by Steve Martin, describes Toronto as "just like New York, but without all the stuff."

Ouch!  Our fragile Toronto egos insist we live in a world class metropolis -- the New York of the north, you know -- but our heads say, "No way!"  That's why it's a shot to our collective inferiority complex to hear hogtown sarcastically cut down to size.

So how do we soothe our bruised egos?  Simple, we look down on our noses at our perceived inferiors, and no city makes us feel more smug than Buffalo.  The mistake on the lake.

Ask a born and bred Torontonian what comes to mind when they ponder the Queen City, and the answer is likely to be one of three things: urban poverty and crime; those ridiculous, nasal accents with their whiny vowels; and fire, fire, everywhere fire (I'm looking at you Tonawanda, Lackawanna and Cheektowaga).  Seriously, Buffalo, do your local newscasts feature stories about something other than homicide and house fires?

Buffalo is not without its charms, however, none greater than its glorious contribution to gastronomy: the buffalo wing.  And though there is some dispute as to which Buffalo landmark can properly lay claim to having invented it -- most accounts cite the Anchor Bar -- no one doubts the city of origin.

As a teen, my family used to make frequent shopping trips to Lewiston, New York, a small border town just down the road from Buffalo.   Every trip concluded with a hundred wings at the same watering hole.  I miss those wings, partially because I enjoyed those trips, but also because there are few foods I enjoy more.

Despite its bar roots, the humble chicken wing has a lot going for it.  Texturally, it offers a disproportionate level of deep fried crispiness relative to its size.  Most importantly, traditional Buffalo-style wing sauce is quite acidic, which cuts the heavy qualities of fried food with a perfect spicy zip.

As a wing traditionalist, I feel compelled to add that under no circumstances can I endorse wings smothered in barbecue sauce.  They are an affront to gastronomy.  A thick, sweet sauce is perfect for many grilled and smoked meats, but it has no place on a tender morsel of deep fried chicken.  Likewise, batter on chicken wings must be condemned as needless frippery.

Sadly, there are other emerging threats in the world of the chicken wing.  Supplies of perhaps the world's greatest bar munchie are woefully low after the bankruptcy of North America's largest wing producer, Pilgrim's Pride, while demand is way up because of Super Bowl weekend.  The situation is so dire, Stephen Colbert has been reduced to warning of the coming "Wing-ageddon" (sorry fellow Canucks, click here and fast forward to 2:48 to see the video):

That got me thinking about chicken wing alternatives.  During my wayward youth, I frittered away two long years as the world's worst vegetarian.  My virtuous experiment ended during my second year of university when a three month stint of eating nothing but Mr. Noodles no doubt contributed to a ten day hospital stay that included surgery, urethral swabs, catheters, and six-a-day Demerol injections (okay, the Demerol was actually kinda fun).  Some vegetarian.

The lingering impact of the "Time of the Great Meatlessness" is a profound love of tofu, especially when deep fried.  Done properly, deep fried tofu, much like chicken wings, has a crispy exterior and a meaty interior.  That got me thinking: Wouldn't deep fried tofu make an awesome chicken wing substitute?

So I tried it, and it does.

Now, you can deep fry and smother pretty much anything in a sauce of butter, garlic, hot sauce (I use Frank's) and salt and it'll taste pretty good, but I was surprised by just how much I enjoyed this dish.  Good tofu has a firmness that conveys a certain meatiness, but the crowning touch is crumbled blue cheese.  Though I prefer ranch dressing with my chicken wings, a sprinkling of gorgonzola adds a little funk and a necessary hint of umami to the finished product when made with tofu.

So no mercy, Buffalo!  As if it weren't bad enough that we're trying to steal your football team (albeit poorly), now we're stealing your wing sauce for our own nefarious ends.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh.  There must surely be reasons to live in the Queen City beyond chicken wings.  A recent scientific study suggests that improvements in air quality over the past few decades have led to increases in life expectancy in many North American cities, with Buffalonians (Buffaloes?) enjoying a greater benefit than almost anyone else -- up to ten extra months according to researchers.

I felt a little jealous upon hearing that news, but not for long.  After all, who wants to spend ten extra months in Buffalo?

Buffalo Tofu

In a pinch, steps 3-5 can probably be skipped (though I've not tried).  I boil my tofu before cooking it after reading a note in Sichuan Cookery, by Fuchsia Dunlop, that this step removes any lingering flavour of the coagulant used to make it.  The time in a low oven is done merely to dry out the tofu before frying. It can probably be replaced by slicing the tofu and leaving it to rest for a few hours or even overnight, uncovered, in the fridge, or by pressing the tofu to remove as much moisture as possible.

300g firm tofu
1L vegetable oil
30g blue cheese (Gorgonzola)

Half recipe, Alton Brown's buffalo wing sauce

1. Preheat oven to 80C (175F).
2. Thoroughly rinse the tofu and slice into rectangles 1cm (0.4") thick and approximately 3.5cm long x 3.5cm thick (1.5" x 1.5").
3. In a large wok, bring 1 litre of water to a boil, add the tofu slices, and simmer for 5 minutes.
4. Remove tofu from the water and drain on paper towel.
5. Place the tofu slices on a rack atop a cookie sheet and let dry out in the oven for 30 minutes, flipping the tofu after 15 minutes.
6. Remove from the oven and store, refrigerated, in an airtight container until ready to cook.
7. In a large wok, heat the vegetable oil over medium-high heat until it reaches 190C (375F).  Add the tofu and increase the heat to high.  Maintain the temperature of the oil as close to 190C (375F) as possible, adjusting the heat as necessary.  Fry the tofu, flipping occasionally, until golden brown and slightly puffy, approximately six minutes.
8. While heating the vegetable oil, prepare the buffalo wing sauce and set aside in a large bowl.
9. Drain the tofu briefly on a double layer of paper towel, add to the bowl of wing sauce, stir to combine.  Crumble the blue cheese on top of the sauced tofu.  Serve immediately.

Boysterous: Starfish's oyster po' boy and the quest for sustainability

There's a spot in Toronto's St. Lawrence Market, at the junction of two aisles, from which I sometimes survey all three of the market's fishmongers.  And what I see these days pains me.

Two of the three proudly display Chilean sea bass, and all three usually have some Atlantic cod and grouper, often just a few slots down from the trays of farmed salmon and monkfish.  In other words, these guys sell a lot of unsustainable fish.

I spoke to the manager of one of these shops a few months ago and asked him why so much unsustainable catch makes it into display cases.  His answer was one part cop out, one part foreboding pragmatism.  The obvious reason for selling unsustainably fished species is that customers don't just buy them, they demand them.  But that excuse only stretches so far.  The other reason they do it, according to my piscine Deep Throat, is that there's no longer enough sustainable catch available to fill twenty feet of refrigerated display cases.

More worrisome yet, this trio isn't alone.  I've visited many of Toronto's most reputable fishmongers and they all sell unsustainable seafood.  It's an epidemic.

Now, I'm hardly a saint when it comes to sustainability.  My ignorance of the issue led me down some inexcusable paths.  But I saw the light about a year ago and have since devoted myself to the cause of sustainability with fervour.

I've struggled to educate myself about the issues by reading fantastically helpful books like Bottomfeeder, by Taras Grescoe, and The End of the Line, by Charles Clover.  I carry a wallet-sized copy of SeaChoice's Canada's Seafood Guide with me wherever I go.  I even question servers and fishmongers about the provenance of the seafood they offer.  Most importantly, I've stopped eating unsustainable fish.

But I want to do more.

I got the chance this month thanks to Toronto Life.  I'm in the process of writing a sidebar for the January issue that identifies a handful of sustainable restaurant dishes in Toronto.  It hasn't been easy.  I now understand how difficult it must be to fill a display case with sustainable seafood.  Finding five dishes took hours of digging and led me down a lot of false paths.

Until now, for example, I'd always assumed that McDonald's Filet-O-Fish, made largely of Alaskan pollock, represents one of the best seafood choices available.  The fishery earned Maritime Stewardship Council (MSC) certification and was routinely cited as an exemplar of industry best practices.  This year, according to Greenpeace, catches have plummeted almost fifty percent and a collapse of the fishery, along with the ecosystem it supports, is possible.  Goodbye fish sticks and California rolls.

I can move on, I thought, there are plenty of fish in the sea.  Having digested the lessons of Bottomfeeder, I immediately sought out something small and oily, like anchovies, only to discover that the MSC listed the Atlantic anchovy as a fish to avoid now that the Bay of Biscay fishery has collapsed and stocks in the remaining Portuguese fishery have sunk to critical levels.

Researching this piece was a struggle, but it had its rewards.

First, there are a handful of restaurants in the Greater Toronto Area that care enough to at least make some effort to serve sustainable seafood.  Jamie Kennedy has long been the poster boy for sustainability in this town, but the Vancouver Aquarium's Ocean Wise programme identifies five local restaurants that serve sustainable dishes:

1. Amuse-Bouche
2. C5
3. EPIC
4. Pangaea Restaurant
5. Trios Bistro

I also learned that SeaChoice has worked with a handful of restaurants that "are at least engaged to some degree:"

1. Jamie Kennedy Kitchens
2. Reds Bistro & Wine Bar
3. Scaramouche
4. Cowbell
5. Oliver Bonacini
6. Oyster Boy
7. Niagara Street Café
8. The Drake Hotel
9. Starfish Oyster Bed & Grill

Second, my research connected me with Taina Uitto, the national manager of SeaChoice, Canada's pre-eminent advocacy group for sustainable seafood, and the publisher of Canada's Seafood Guide, a handy wallet-sized card that takes much of the confusion out of buying seafood. 

Uitto's passion for the subject is obvious, and her expertise invaluable.  She also eloquently articulates the sort of perspective we all need to adopt if wild seafood is to survive: "So... things are not that simple.  But, what I always say to people is that is asking the questions really that big of a deal?  If you had a peanut allergy, would you be afraid to ask whether there are nuts in a dish?  I feel the same about seafood.  I have a certain allergy to unsustainability, and don’t want to put that in my body.  Even if you don’t get the answers, and it seems like a bother, and you might even end up making a choice that you are not 100% sure about, even asking the question helps.  We get feedback from the industry that change is really brought on by the consumers asking for answers (and sustainable options), which makes the company go looking.  We may not be there yet, but we need help getting there from consumers."

I owe my third and final discovery to Patrick McMurray, owner of Starfish and elite oyster shucker.  I happened to contact him the day before his restaurant hosted an event for A Good Catch, a new cookbook by Jill Lambert that features recipes for sustainable fish from Canada's best chefs as well as a species by species guide to choosing fish and a list of readily available alternatives to popular but unsustainable species.  It is essential reading for anyone who loves to cook seafood and cares about the fate of the oceans.

So, the minute I cracked the cover, I knew I had to choose one of the recipes from A Good Catch for the leather district gourmet's Teach a Man to Fish 2008 sustainable seafood event.  I didn't have to search that long, either.  Given that Patrick McMurray led me to Jill and the a book, it seemed only fitting that I use his recipe.  Of course, it didn't hurt that his dish is a fantastic oyster po' boy sandwich.

A po' boy is a hot sandwich traditionally made with fried oysters or shrimp on a crusty French-style loaf, often dressed with a little lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise.  It's about as New Orleans as you can get, on a par with jazz and Hurricane cocktails.  Patrick McMurray's version hews pretty closely to New Orleans tradition.  The only difference is in the breading -- he uses Japanese panko bread crumbs. 

Choosing a suitable bread can be tricky, but Rachel and I never really had a doubt.  We live around the corner from The Fish Store & Sandwiches, the very definition of a hole-in-the-wall foodie destination, and they serve their delicious (but, unfortunately, not always sustainable) sandwiches on a wonderfully light, slightly yeasty Portuguese loaf, with a chewy crumb and delicate crust.  That loaf comes from the Golden Wheat bakery across the street, so we asked around and learned that the rolls in question are called Pão de Mafra, and picked up a couple for our po' boys.

They are "POW!" awesome with this sandwich, especially slathered with a little homemade tartar sauce and gilded with a half dozen oysters straight out of the frying pan.  I loved mine so much that I ate it with a suspicious glare and hunched shoulders, as if I were wary of some interloper dashing into my home and stealing my po' boy out from under my nose.

Oh yeah, aside from tasting incredible, few seafood options are more sustainable than a farmed oyster, the world's greatest bivalve.  Farmed properly, that little Malpeque actually cleans the water it inhabits.  Raw or cooked, we should be eating more of them. 

I've already described this city's need for a sustainable fishmonger, and I'm convinced that the first person to do it will make a lot of money.  Toronto foodies have already shown a willingness to pay exorbitant prices for their organic, responsibly farmed meat at Cumbrae's and The Healthy Butcher.  It's a winning business model.  I know, because every few weeks Rachel and I visit one or both places and wait our turn to pay an exorbitant amount of money for a free range chicken, a slab of smokey bacon, or a tender short rib.  Above all else, however, we do it for the chance to vote with our dollars for a food choice that mitigates suffering and ecological damage.

I just want the same option when buying seafood.

For the halibut: the search for Toronto's best fish and chips

It's a sad day for fried food when the advertising cards on the tables of one of Toronto's most reputable fish and chips joints extol the health benefits of the frying oil.  I must know more, so I dig a little deeper and find a website.  "Fry-On," it brags, "is a uniquely processed, nutritional, 100% vegetable corn and canola oil blend."  Digesting the list of Fry-On's virtues, which apparently include anti-oxidants, no cholesterol, and zero trans fats "per serving," makes me wonder: what demented imbecile chooses their fish and chips based on the nutritional qualities of the bubbling cauldron of fat in which they're made?

Not this one.  After searching high and low, we've come to one very important conclusion: frying in vegetable oil is, without doubt, the wrong way to make fish and chips.  The best way is the old-fashioned way: with beef drippings.  The problem is that chippies that use drippings are a dying breed.  In fact, as far as I can tell, there remain but two who hew to tradition in Toronto: Penrose and Caz's.  Everyone else has turned to the dark side, favouring vegetable shortening or composite oils, like Fry-On, that offer convenience to the restaurant and somewhat less guilt to the diner –- at the expense of flavour.

In order to identify Toronto's best fish and chips, Rachel and I visited nine of Toronto's best loved chippies.  Our friends Jill and Rob, who also joined us on our donut quest and our excursion to Montreal, accompanied us to seven of them on one glorious day.  The strategy was to divide one serving among four people -- we're not completely insane.

We were unanimous in our first choice: Penrose Fish & Chips.  Their halibut and chips may not be flawless -- frankly, I think the fish tends towards a touch of greasiness sometimes -- but the batter is light and crispy, the fries have a crunchy exterior and tender interior, and the flavour of both is exceptional, rich and deep without being obtrusive.  On our most recent visit to Penrose, I asked Dave Johnston, who now tends the fryers while his mother, Marion, deals with customers, how they produce Barbra Streisand's favourite fish and chips.  It's no surprise to learn that they refuse to take shortcuts.  That means not only using beef fat, it also means hand-cutting and par-frying their chips before crisping them up in a final bath of scorching hot fat.  I only wish some of Toronto's finer restaurants approached their dishes with the same diligence with which the Johnstons approach a plate of fast food.

For me, at least, Caz's placed a close second.  Like Penrose, they fry in beef fat.  They also serve the biggest plate of fish and chips in the city.  For those eager to eat responsibly, Caz's serves only wild caught fish.  There are but three drawbacks: first, the fish was a little greasy; second, the calm of our meal was consistently breached by the loud argument the fry lady was having with a supplier; and, third, the decor screams fast food.  In short: good food, bad environment.

If you do happen to be one of those people who insist on vegetable oil, there is hope for you yet.  You can find a very good plate of fish and chips in Toronto (just know there are better).  The two best places to enjoy vegetable oil-fried fish and chips are Reliable and Harbord, in that order.  Both turn out crispy, delicious meals, but Reliable gets the nod for its exceptionally light batter.  Reliable had better get it right, because it occupies a crowded chunk of fish and chips real estate, what with two other chippies plying their trade along the same strip of Queen Street East.  It's enjoyed a renaissance of late thanks to the publicity showered upon it by an appearance on Restaurant Makeover.  Not that you'll find any of the dishes Lynn Crawford developed on the menu -- the owner, George Hung, freely admits the move was a smartly conceived publicity stunt.  The decor is stylish, however, though I have to admit to having a soft spot for Penrose, which looks like a fifties relic with its tiny booths, sea blue walls, and a pièce de résistance swordfish mounted on the north wall.

I hate to speak negatively of any restaurant, but there are some chippies that just don't cut the tartar sauce.  Chippy's is a perennial favourite among some Toronto aficionados, and at its best it can be excellent.  But that's rarely the case.  For what it's worth, the problem isn't necessarily the food; the wretched oversized Chinese takeout containers contribute too.  The food is piled high in a narrow box, and in order to seal it, the fish and chips must be crammed in so tight that they turn into a moist, greasy mess.  In Chippy's defense, they are the only joint in town that makes legitimate mushy peas, and they offer a superb tartar sauce.

Steven Davey, the restaurant critic at Now Magazine, recently named Deep Blue the best chippy in town.  Steven Davey is wrong.  Deep Blue makes a solid halibut and chips, but their adventures in flavoured batter fail miserably.  On a recent visit, Rachel and I vied for her halibut after we discovered how leaden and obscenely thick the Jamaican jerk batter is.  The mushy peas, coyly described as 'hummus,' taste too powerfully of garlic, and the french fries were tough and chewy.

I have to admit to bitter disappointment upon discovering that the chippy of my youth, Woodgreen, makes horrifically bad food.  To add insult to injury, I even had to endure the torture of knowing our meal wasn't going to meet expectations while it was being cooked.  Rather than fizzing and springing to life at the addition of the haddock and potatoes, as hot oil should, Woodgreen's frying oil acknowledged the raw ingredients with the faintest sequence of listless bubbles.  Sure enough, the fish was pallid and limp and everything swam in a puddle of grease.  So much for sentimentality.

The only other truly awful experience was at British Style Fish & Chips, which offers a product so vile we couldn't finish a plate of it between the four of us.  Puddles of grease aside, the french fries were perhaps the worst we've ever had.  Please explain to me how fried potatoes can be so tough and chewy that jaws ache after eating them, because I can't figure it out.

Somethin's Fishy may be Toronto's newest fish and chip shop.  Tucked into cozy quarters in the heart of the Kensington, this joint distinguishes itself with its fries -- thin shoestrings laced with spice -- and tasty condiments.  Unfortunately both the fries and the fish suffer from cooking in oil that's too cold.  Our meal here was greasy and went unfinished.  My hunch, however, is that turning up the heat would make a world of difference, and raise this chippy to the level of Harbord or Reliable.

Torontonians are passionate about their fish and chips.  I drew inspiration for this quest from Chowhound, which hosts no fewer than two boards with a combined total of almost two hundred comments from hogtowners eager to share their picks and pans.  I know there are places I have yet to try, and I am certain I will.  Just as long they don't try to sell me on the quality of their vegetable oil.

Foaming at the mouth: Wylie Dufresne, Guy Rubino, and the future of molecular gastronomy

Had enough yet?  Can't wait to see the last of foams, spheres, airs, and the countless other "gimmicks" at the heart of molecular gastronomy?

If you answered 'Yes' to those questions, you're not alone.

Chris Nuttall-Smith, outgoing food editor of Toronto Life, knows his food and has eaten more than his fair share of great and ghastly meals, and he's fed up.  During a conversation earlier this summer, he professed to being "tired of molecular gastronomy."  When I asked him recently if I could use his quote for this post, he not only agreed, he elaborated:

If you really got me on a roll, I'd say:

'I find it so tedious, and wankerish and precious. I used to roll my eyes when food writers said this kind of thing. C'mon, I'd think. Give the newbies a chance. But then two years passed and every hack chef on the continent discovered foams. Enough, fuck. And how is it "cutting edge" when chefs use transglutaminase to glue pieces of meat together? Weren't they doing that at Tyson Foods in 1986?  Really. Can I just get something that tastes good and was made with a bit of integrity instead?'

Yes. I'd love it if you'd use that.

Me too.  Agree or disagree, the man writes good copy.

I'm glad he didn't mince words, because his comment provides some context for two other experiences I enjoyed this summer.  The first, dinner at wd-50, Wylie Dufresne's landmark molecular gastronomy restaurant on Manhattan's Lower East Side, offers a taste of what many naysayers loathe most about this new approach to food: unconventional flavour pairings, oodles of obscure chemicals, and a penchant for deconstructing traditional dishes.

Rachel and I visited with another couple, our friends Ryan and Sue, and, for the most part, the meal was a hit.  The best dish of the night was Dufresne's take on french onion soup: two spheres of gruyere-flavoured liquid floating in a pool of beef broth -- it's comfort food with flair and imagination.  What impresses most about this dish aren't the spheres, however, it's that delectable broth, a staple of classic Western cuisine crafted with obvious skill.  Dufresne may no longer work in Jean-Georges' kitchen, but he brings those same standards to his own.

The delicious riffs on comfort food don't stop there.  Pizza pebbles with pepperoni and shiitake dazzle while eliciting laughs of joy and amazement.  Pop one of these balls into your mouth, and it immediately crumbles into a sandy powder with a texture and taste eerily similar to that of Combos, the pretzel snack that "cheeses your hunger away."  This is no accident. Some may find it absurd, even offensive, to pay good money for the taste of Combos on a tasting menu, but I think it's a stroke of genius -- laughter's a reaction I wish chefs would encourage more often, especially in fine dining restaurants that intimidate some diners as much as they delight others.

Not every dish on the twelve-course tasting menu tickled us as much as these two -- one in particular, a combination of surf clam, watermelon, and fermented black bean leaves me a little cold, mainly because I dislike the vaguely raunchy flavour of fermented beans paired with fresh clam -- but most of the rest combine form and flavour exceptionally well, two others especially: I'm not sure if lamb belly, black chick pea, and cherried cucumber is a great take on lamb or bacon, but the unexpected taste of cured meat mixed with the mild gaminess of lamb makes for an unforgettable dish.  Dufresne plays with Jewish deli food (or a BLT, apparently) in a dish of thinly sliced pickled beef tongue with fried mayonnaise and tomato molasses.  wd-50 refines tongue to such an extent that the dish conjures images of pastrami, not offal (click here for the recipe).  And, yes, fried mayo is as delicious as it sounds, though I must confess to expecting a slightly thinner texture from the mayo.

Pastry chef Alex Stupak's desserts were every bit as good as the savoury courses they followed, with fried butterscotch pudding, mango, taro ice cream, and smoked macadamia the best of the lot.  This dish deftly balances hot and cold, and sweet, salty, and smoky.   Like mayo, pudding just gets better after a brief sojourn in hot fat.

To read someone else's take on our wd-50's tasting menu, and to see pictures of the dishes discussed above, click here.

Chris and Wylie approach food from two very different places: Wylie pushes boundaries and buttons; Chris yearns for quality ingredients cooked simply.  On the surface, it appears the stage has been set for a messy divorce between molecular gastronomy and traditional (dare I call it Slow?) food.  But are they really incompatible?

My experience writing The Dish for the October 2007 Toronto Life makes me think not.  Guy Rubino has carved a reputation as an elite chef by creating gorgeous, complex dishes that mingle Asian and Western techniques and ingredients at his Toronto restaurant, rain.  He's best known for his TV show, Made to Order, which focuses on the sumptuous dining experiences he and his brother, Michael, tailor to the desires of special clients.

What I find most fascinating about Rubino's style is that he frequently dips into the molecular toolbox to tweak his food.  I arrived curious to see how and why Rubino integrates this emerging culinary outlook into his dishes.  What I found left me convinced that Guy Rubino is a role model for the future of this cooking revolution.

I profiled a trio of preparations featuring bluefin tuna, wagyu beef, and tangerine.  Nuttall-Smith assigned me the piece specifically because Rubino uses transglutaminase in one element of the dish.  Transglutaminase -- also known as "meat glue" or "trans glam" amongst chefs -- is a naturally occurring enzyme that literally glues proteins together.  Take a chunk of beef, for example, spread a tiny bit of trans glam powder on it, and set another piece of meat, let's say chicken, on top.  Wrap the pieces in cling film, and let them rest briefly in the fridge.  When you pull them out, cow and clucker will be fused together in a permanent embrace.  If a tiny voice in your head is saying "Cool" right now, you're like me.

Rubino's trio is deceptively simple.  It includes a wagyu and bluefin tartare with tangerine gelée and tangerine foam; a strip of tangerine fruit leather encased in a coil of bluefin sashimi and dressed with tamari veal reduction, dehydrated ginger and wasabi; and a thick disc of seared, wagyu fat-encased bluefin loin finished with a tangerine teriyaki miso froth and a thin line of cilantro oil.  What struck me most is that transglutaminase is just the tip of the iceberg with this dish.  By my count, there are no fewer than six molecular gastronomy techniques in the three preparations: agar jellies the tangerine gelee; methylcellulose thickens the tangerine mousse; sodium alginate binds the fruit leather; soy lecithin emulsifies the teriyaki froth; xanthan gum stabilizes the cilantro oil; and, lest we forget the reason for my visit in the first place, transglutaminase binds the wagyu fat to the loin to add a little moisture and flavour.

The kicker, of course, is that Guy Rubino is not a molecular gastronomer.  He's simply a chef who recognizes that the methods refined by the likes of Homaro Cantu, Grant Achatz, and Wylie Dufresne can be put to use in any kitchen to improve the taste and texture of many dishes.  We've come to expect a restaurant to be "molecular gastronomy" in much the same way we used to insist restaurants be French, Japanese, or Italian, until a new generation of chefs blew that conceit to smithereens.  Molecular gastronomy is undergoing a similar transformation, shedding its niche status and emerging as a broadly used set of tools that help cooks enhance and reinterpret the foods they prepare regardless of their background.

As I see it, Nuttall-Smith, Dufresne, and Rubino -- or, put in more political terms, the conservative, the revolutionary, and the moderate -- are proxies for a broader debate in the culinary world over the role of molecular gastronomy in modern cuisine.  Each position has value, too.  I am constantly fascinated and amazed by culinary innovation, but I'm not blind to its excesses.  To the contrary, I've been forced to eat a few of them.  Some passionate, knowledgeable foodies, like Chris Nuttall-Smith, offer necessary resistance.  By challenging the relentless quest for innovation for innovation's sake, skeptics force chefs to ask the most important question of the dishes they produce, not merely "Is it good?" but "Is it better?"  The answer, sometimes, is "No."  Wylie Dufresne, on the other hand, pushes boundaries and buttons, forges new techniques, and discovers the ingredients of tomorrow.  He, and chefs like him, provide the necessary imagination that propels any creative venture such as cooking forward. 

Innovators must remember to ask one simple question:  "Can I make it better?"  And they often do.  Guy Rubino is the product of this dialectic, synthesizing the techniques he learns from chefs like Dufresne with incredible raw materials and his own culinary vision to produce a richer, juicier tuna loin or a more intense tangerine foam.  His food is by no means simple, but by probing the area between the extremes he promotes compromise and a promising future.

Can TV, cookbooks, and a line of signature frozen entrées be far behind? Part II

Oops!... I did it again!

That's right, I have another small piece in the July, 2007 issue of Toronto Life that hit newsstands yesterday. It's a profile of a dish by Chef Andrea Nicholson at Sequel restaurant.  The dish is a 'sous vide' of arctic char with octopus and blood orange.  It's served with a wonderful, palate- and sinus-clearing icicle radish and wild ginger sorbet that starts sweet and finishes fiery, and a green icicle radish gelée that is the focus of the piece.  The seafood is topped with a craveable fish skin 'crisp' -- a salted and fried piece of arctic char skin that calls to mind some sort of potato chip-nori hybrid.

All this is my way of saying, go buy the latest issue of Toronto Life.  For now, at least, it's the only way to read the piece, though I'll post the link when it's up on the Toronto Life website.  I know I said I'd add a link to my piece last time and have yet to do so, but that's not my fault.  Toronto Life has yet to make it available online.  I can only assume it's because they worry the surge in traffic to view the piece would kill their web servers.

But I could be wrong.

What's black and white and read all over? el Bulli's cantaloupe caviar (and me!)

What can I say?  Word gets around.

First, Toronto Life asks me to do some writing for them.  I say sure.  Then, out of the blue, I get a request to participate in a Globe and Mail article by Beppi Crosariol on molecular gastronomy for the home cook after being referred by Clement of A La Cuisine.  It's all pretty damn cool, and I just can't refuse.

I even prepared some refreshing cantaloupe caviar to be photographed for the piece.  Seeing as I spend most of my mornings in a daze, I was oblivious to the fact that the article was in yesterday's paper until Rachel emailed me.   A quick sprint to the newsstand revealed that a photo of my cantaloupe caviar even made the front page of Canada's newspaper of record, right above the banner.  Sweet!

Welcome to those of you visiting for the first time after reading the Globe article.  If you'd like more information about molecular gastronomy in general, click here, and for a quick tour of my molecular gastronomy pantry check out this post.  I also encourage you to explore frozen chocolate air, Nutella powder, and the the dish that kick-started my interest in molecular gastronomy, white chocolate and caviar.  For a whiff of controversy, nothing beats el Bulli's deep fried rabbit ears.  If you'd like to experiment with molecular gastronomy at home and are looking for an easy to prepare, delicious, familiar flavour, look no further than Moto's donut soup.  For those whose interests veer towards liquid spheres (aka liquid ravioli), we've written about liquid pea ravioli, mango ravioli with coconut cream and ground rice, or you can just keep on reading this post about melon caviar.  We also write extensively about cooking and dining in Toronto, as well as a host of other food-related topics.  Molecular gastronomy is much, but not all of what we do.

These melon caviar are my third kick at the spherification can, so I'm beginning to feel like something of an old pro by now.  Even so, the caviar are, in many ways, easier to make than full-sized spheres, which have a nasty tendency to burst during the "cooking" process.  If anything, caviar are subject to the opposite problem: they need so little time in the calcium chloride solution that they sometimes completely solidify.

Dying to make them?  The melon caviar recipe is available here.  To make cantaloupe juice, simply dice a cantaloupe, drop it in your blender, and liquefy.  It's all very straightforward from there.  By the way, the photo of me hunched over that tiny bowl in the Globe article is partially for show.  Yes, I made perfectly good caviar that way, but it is easier -- assuming you're not making them as part of a photo shoot -- to use a bigger vessel.  Also, if playing with two syringes is not your cup of tea, there are devices made specifically for mass producing these caviar.  There's even an el Bulli demonstration video that comes with a recipe for apple caviar.

The final dish is garnished with passion fruit seeds and a sprig of mint.  Visually, these delicate pearls are stunning -- a light, vaguely translucent shade of coral (click here to view the el Bulli catalogue photo).  The taste is straightforward melon and, when "cooked" properly, that taste explodes onto the palate as each caviar bursts in the mouth.  Rachel and I had some leftover prosciutto, so we tried a molecular gastronomy version of an Italian staple, melon and prosciutto.  The combination loses nothing in translation, as long as the melon is sweet enough to contrast the ham's saltiness, though this is an issue with this dish whatever the preparation.

My plan to conquer all media is unfolding nicely.  Internet.  Check.  Magazines.  Check.  Newspapers.  Check.  I believe television is next. Food Network, make me an offer, and it better not involve Unwrapped.

Can TV, cookbooks, and a line of signature frozen entrées be far behind?

"I've been reading your blog and like what you do. Do you have any interest in writing for the magazine?"

This email query -- which I rescued from my junk mail folder (thanks, Hotmail) -- was from the food editor of Toronto Life, Chris Nuttall-Smith. Would I be interested?  Of course I'd be interested.  Toronto Life is a prominent magazine, with a monthly readership of almost 900,000 and a reputation as perhaps the preeminent resource for information about food and dining in Toronto.  Toronto Life's focus on food, fashion, nightlife, arts, and investigative journalism makes it roughly analogous to New York Magazine, a city-based magazine with a broad mandate.

I pondered my response carefully.  My email had to sound eager, not desperate.  I settled on, "Writing for Toronto Life sounds like an amazing opportunity, so I would definitely be interested."  This is a restrained version of the truth, but it seemed inappropriate to reply: "I would slave over a keyboard for you."

We met for lunch, a nerve-jangling experience on par with a first date.  I even approached it with the same mixture of nerves and planning: What should I say?  What will he think of me?  What should I wear?  Much to Rachel's chagrin, these are questions I hadn't asked myself in years.  Our meal went well, nonetheless, and, to borrow Chris' words, I'm now a "Toronto Life contributor."  My first assignment just hit newsstands this week in the May 2007 issue.

The Queen of Spices: homemade cardamom-vanilla ice cream and Xacutti's cardamom biscuits

Ah, cardamom.  Is there anything it can't do?

Once found primarily in Indian dishes and the occasional Scandinavian baked treat, cardamom has emerged from its shell in recent years to claim a place in the wider world of cuisine.  And why not?  It has an ineffable vibrancy, equally capable of carrying both sweet and savoury dishes.  There aren't many flavours that can star in both a duck curry and an ice cream, but it's no problem for the Queen of Spices.  A diva it's not, though.  It can play a supporting role as well, providing an unmistakable but hard to place background note, the kind that leaves you asking, "What is that flavour?"

We were introduced to cardamom-vanilla ice cream by Kensington Market Organic Ice Cream, one of Toronto's best and, sadly, most elusive producers of artisanal ice cream.  We were infrequent visitors two summers ago when Bruce Kurtenbach, the company's founder, set up shop in the Kensington and began selling his wild assortment of flavours to the public: from rose petal and blue cheese to blueberry-lavender and, well, cardamom-vanilla.  The ice creams are still available in some stores -- The Healthy Butcher on Queen West comes to mind -- but the shop in the Kensington appears to be no more.

What's a cardamom-vanilla ice cream lover to do?  Make his own, of course.  And so I did.  But thanks to a tip from Rachel, I didn't stop there.  She suggested adding a little texture to the ice cream with pistachio praline, which I did by adapting a hazelnut praline recipe from Regan Daley's, In the Sweet Kitchen.

Purée-fication: crab cakes with popcorn purée

I hate secrets, especially food secrets.

What is Coca Cola's secret formula?  Why does Heinz ketchup taste so much better than any competing brand?  What is the Colonel's secret blend of herbs and spices?  And how the hell do you make Moto's popcorn purée?

My answers are: marketing; wish I knew but think this article is perhaps the most interesting analysis I've ever read about ketchup or any other topic; not sure, but I think it includes MSG; and someone please tell me because that sauce is addictive.

Yes, ever since our meal at Moto I've been unable to get popcorn puree out of my mind.  Every so often I drift off into a reverie, pondering how to reproduce that sauce -- the toasted background flavour, and those powerful salty and buttery notes.  It's movie theatre popcorn ambrosia.  My one and only taste was a tiny golden pool in a dish of snow crab with a passion fruit noodle, which is not a lot to go on.  I was so taken, I even asked our server how to make it.  Her reply was simplicity itself: "popcorn, milk, and a lot of butter."

Mmmmm... donuts: beignets, paczki, zeppole, and malasada

My most vivid memory of my first and only trip to New Orleans is of visiting a strip club in the French Quarter with my grandparents.  If I've ever had a more Fellini-esque moment in my life, I don't know what it might be.  There I was, seventeen years old, drink in hand, with my adorable, five-foot tall grandmother by my side watching half-naked women wrestle.  I wasn't sure whose eyes to cover, hers or mine.  Thankfully, the great state of Louisiana had the common sense to protect the wrestlers' modesty and the crowd's decency by mandating covered nipples.  In this dive that meant a pair of Band-Aids.  Voilà! Innocence preserved Big Easy style.

My second most vivid memory was my first plate of beignets smothered in icing sugar at Cafe du Monde.  Those beignets opened my eyes.  Up to that point in my life fried dough had meant only one thing: donuts from Tim Hortons, Country Style, or one of the independent donut joints that were ubiquitous in the days before Starbucks.  From that point forward, I recognized that the standard North American donut is really just the tip of a delicious, glazed iceberg, a mere johnny-come-lately of fried dough.

Cultures around the world, from South Korea to Argentina and dozens of points in between, celebrate homegrown variants of the donut.  In Okinawa, Japan, for example, they serve sata andagi, whereas in South Africa the fried dough of choice is a koeksuster.  Some cultures even use fried dough in savoury cooking.  Any lover of congee, Asian rice porridge, is probably familiar with youtiao, the dish's typical salted donut accompaniment.  Having a place in so many cuisines is the greatest testament to the universal appeal of fried dough.  The appeal extends into modern cuisine, as well: donut soup is one of the most recent incarnations of the beloved treat.

Living in multicural Toronto means not always having to travel the globe to taste regional delicacies.  Fried dough is no different.  I read last year that a Toronto bakery specializes in zeppole, an Italian donut traditionally eaten to celebrate St. Joseph's Day, March 19.  So what better way to celebrate the patron saint of Canada and confectioners than an expedition to sample a stomachful of donuts from different countries the weekend before the feast.  Our friends Rob and Jill, who writes a knitting blog of her own, joined us.  Recruiting people to spend a day eating donuts is, shockingly, not that hard to do.  Donut Day 2007 was born.