Save Your Fork… There’s Pie

In the spirit of clearing out all the useless crap from 2007 to get ready for great new things in 2008, I am finally forcing myself to write a book review of a book I’ve had sitting here in my office for over a month. Against my better judgement, I hung on to it, figuring I’d get around to writing about it once my wrists stopped aching. That has sort of happened, but in the meantime (despite my hopes it would wander off and find itself a new home) the annoying book hasn’t gone away.

As readers can likely guess, it was a freebie, arriving at my door accompanied by a bottle of wine. The free wine didn’t make the book more interesting, and the book didn’t make the wine more palatable, although, presumably if I drank the whole bottle of wine before reading the book, that might have improved the situation.

The truth is that I don’t know a whole lot about wine, and This Food, That Wine: Food and Wine Pairing Made Easy! by Angie MacRae, Stacy Metulynsky and Chris Knight should have been just the primer I needed. Unfortunately, the! foreshadowing! evident! in! the! title! did! not! offer! enough! warning! about! the! excessive! use! of! exclamation! marks!!!!! Because these gals are perky -in that “someone please pass me a fork to jam into my temple” kind of way.

Do they know about wine? Probably, but I honestly didn’t have the patience to read much of the text and learn from them. The premise of the books is that sommelier Stacy offers some basic info on wine, different varieties, etc, while chef Angie offers recipes to pair with various wines. Angie apparently doesn’t believe that vegetarians like to drink wine, because the vegetarian offerings are a sparse side of meagre.

The writing in general is like having a conversation with a ditzy girlfriend:

Nebbiolo reminds me of tar and roses. I know that sounds like a bad glamour rock band from the 80s, but seriously, next time you have the opportunity, take a glass of Nebbiolo, give it a swirl, and tell me you don’t smell the distinctive nose of sweet perfumed rose petals, and pungent, earthy tar.

Okay, first it’s Guns and Roses, the genre in the 80s was called GLAM rock, not glamour rock, and sweet sassy molassy I hate it when writers write as if they’re talking directly to their readers. Do they really expect readers to give them a call after tracking down a bottle of Nebbiolo to confirm their assessment? This makes them sound like the hosts of some bad cooking show. Oh… wait… these gals are the hosts of a show by the same name on Food TV. That explains a lot.

I suspect that the demographic for this show (never having seen it) is probably women, and that the premise, like so many shows on the Food Network, is of the dumbing down variety. Wine info coming from your best girlfriend, or a reasonable, if overly perky facsimile, is probably easier to take than from the cliched wine snob in a tweed jacket and bow tie, slurping and spitting and making the amateurs feel foolish. They’re supposed to make their readers and viewers feel comfortable and unintimidated.

Which probably works on the folks who think Ray Ray is a great cook, but mostly makes me want to run screaming into the streets and punch the first woman I see with blonde hi-lights and frosted eyeshadow.

As for the wine, it was a bottle of Plantatree Chardonnay, a carbon-positive wine. Shipped in bulk containers from California to Niagara and bottled in PET plastic bottles to reduce the wine’s carbon footprint. Except that it’s still California wine shipped to Ontario. Why not use an Ontario wine? And plastic bottle are almost as ooky as tetra paks. Sure it’s great that they plant a tree for each bottle sold, but hey… why not just do something nice for the environment without making a profit from it? The effort here really isn’t worth the end result, as the wine itself is too light and insipid. It would be perfect for a group of perky girlfriends to sip while watching This Food That Wine on the food network. Me, I had one glass and dumped the rest down the drain.

Everywhere you look in the media are round-ups of the best and the worst of 2007. Food writers are no exception and over the past week or so we’ve been inundated with Top 10s, predictions, best recipes for the year and more.

Being the crank that I am, here is my list of the Top 5 things from 2007 that I officially deem to be over.

5. Fois gras. Issues of inhumane treatment of geese and ducks aside, I just can’t get into fois gras. I’ve tried, really I have. But it will forever remind me of eating liver-flavoured Crisco shortening. In fact, as disgusting as the concept may be, I think I’d actually prefer to have to eat a gob of plain Crisco.

4. Teeny tiny burgers. 2007 seems to be the year Toronto discovered White Castle without actually having one in our city. The slider hamburger showed up at almost every foodie event I attended this year. Yes, they’re cute. No, I don’t want one.

3. Small plates, big bucks. I am tired of everything with a whiff of tapas, unless it’s actually Spanish in origin. The small plates trend has always seemed like a skeezy way for restaurants to charge entree prices for appetizer-sized portions. Enough, I say. Lower those prices or add some more food to the plate.

2. The egos of food writers. Yes, many people read and respect (or not) local food writers and restaurant critics. Some may even base their decision on where to eat from a particular review. But Toronto restaurant critics need to remember that they don’t write for the New York Times, and that their word is not Godlike. They are not personally responsible for long line-ups or a place shutting down.

1. Local food for local people. I’ve ranted about this throughout the year, but I’ll say it once again - you’re not following the 100-mile diet if you’re sucking back a goddamned cup of coffee every morning. Stop trying to make yourself sound cool, green and ethical and just accept the fact that our society is built on the premise of imported goods. Yes, support local farmers (I am still boggled by the fact that this is a NEW concept to people), but don’t get bent out of shape because you need cinnamon.

Wait - a bonus entry - Designer Kitchens. I’ve read recently that the hot new appliances for 2008 are - get this - white!! I still believe that stainless steel will be the avocado of this decade, and years from now we’ll all look back at the fingerprinty stoves, stained granite counters and unused 6-burner gas ranges and shake our heads in awe at our greed and insecurity. If 2008 brings us nothing else, please let it be the year people come to their senses and move to sensible, functional kitchens.

Service Included
by Phoebe Damrosch

With all the hype about celebrity chefs these days, we tend to overlook one very important component of any restaurant crew – the server. While cheffing is most definitely hard work, it can pay off in cookbooks, endorsement deals, TV shows or at the very least, chef groupies.

No fame and fortune awaits the humble server – the front line contact for any restaurant meal. Yes, servers generally get paid better than kitchen staff, but they’re also the ones who are forced to navigate the choppy waters of unruly customers and egotistical chefs.

Phoebe Damrosch’s Service Included tells the tale of a server at Thomas Keller’s New York restaurant Per Se, dishing the dirt on the goings on front of house where so many others have written about what goes on behind the pass.

While this is Damrosch’s own story, based on her experiences as a server, it is actually the personal bits that drag the book down.

Any foodie will be fascinated by the myriad dishes on Keller’s menu, explained minutely, complete with necessary silverware. The endless testing Damrosch endures in the lead up to Per Se’s opening makes it clear just how professional Keller’s servers are expected to be. Even the slightly gossipy stories about various guests (names omitted) add a note of fun. The book gets draggy when Damrosch begins an affair with a sommelier at the restaurant, delving into relationship quirks and details that have little to do with her job. The pair spend a lot of time eating out and trying new foods, and those details are the only thing that kept me reading through the more personal bits.

What keeps the book fun and light-hearted is the commonsense tips” that come with each chapter, such as “please do not steal your waiter’s pen”, “please do not send back your meal after eating most of it”, etc. The stories that undoubtedly provoked such tips would make the book far more amusing, yet for the most part, they are left out in favour of Damrosch’s retelling of how she regularly read her boyfriend’s email when she thought he was cheating.

An ongoing theme throughout the book, set predominantly during the opening months of Per Se, is the many encounters with New York Times food critic Frank Bruni. Damrosch ended up serving him on four of his six visits to Per Se, and watching the tension melt away into friendly repartee is the only real plotline here.

The book concludes with Damrosch’s decision to leave Per Se, and the restaurant industry as a whole, in favour of a writing career. And although Damrosch says that her decision to leave was not about the restaurant’s policy change regarding tips (management decided tips were to be split more evenly with kitchen staff, who are often underpaid), the timing seems more than co-incidental.

Recommended for foodies and fans of Thomas Keller in particular, but don’t expect to be mesmerized.

I didn’t manage to get my shit together to donate a prize for this year’s awesome Menu For Hope raffle, but we did manage to put together a little sumpin’ sumpin’ at TasteTO. Okay, it’s not going to beat the prize of a tour of the El Bulli test kitchen or dinner cooked by Heston Blumenthal (airfare not included), but for anyone who is a fan of Toronto restaurants and food shops, it’s a pretty damed good prize.

To win a Culinary Tour of Toronto prize package, which includes gift certificates from RiceBar/Wich? Il Fornello, Queen of Tarts, Cafe Taste, iYellow Wine Tours and more, as well as subscriptions to Edible Toronto, Taste, Vines, Taps and City Bites, head on over to TasteTO for more information and then go and bid!

Raffle tickets are $10 US each, and all money donated goes to help fund school lunch programs in Lesotho.

A version of this post originally appeared in my Lilactime LiveJournal back in November of 2004. I’m recycling it because well, I recently made sugarplums, and also because (sshhh!!!) I’m not supposed to be typing unnecessarily. I’ve been diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome in both wrists and I’m supposed to be taking it easy. That is more likely to happen now that all my Christmas baking and candy-making is done, but in the meantime, I’ll be recycling a few posts to offset the ouchies.

***
Okay, class… hands up if you actually know what a sugar plum is.

The Oxford Canadian Dictonary description is “a small round candy of flavoured, boiled sugar”, which is the oddest description I’ve ever seen. Larousse Gastronomique, that bastion of all things edible, disappointingly, contains no entry at all.

If you do a Google search on “sugar plum” you get sugar plum fairies, sugar plum balls (as in, the dance), a website for a gift basket company, and even a brand of tea. None of those have anything to do with actual sugar plums, however.

I first ate a sugar plum in Simcoe, Ontario in about 1990. Some neighbour of my ex’s grandparents discovered an old Victorian recipe and made boxes of the things to give as gifts. We had a box of a dozen to share between six or seven of us. I think I managed to score three of the things, based on a relative or two disliking dried fruit. Brilliant things these. Dried fruit and nuts, essentially the ingredients in a fruitcake, minus the annoyance of the actual cake, all soaked in booze and rolled together, coated with a sprinkling of sugar to balance the flavours. The sugar plum is so named for the inclusion of the sugar coating and prunes (dried plums) along with a variety of other ingredients.

I made these earlier this evening, a batch of about 40 that may not last until I can give them away (traditionally sugar plums are well, plum-sized, but I made these ones truffle sized, as they’ll be given out along with chocolate truffles).

This recipe contains rum, but you could easily replace that with orange juice if you’re a tee-totaller, or if you’ll be serving these to kids. It would actually be a fun recipe to make with kids, as there is no baking, plus you get to grind stuff up in a food processor and then stick your hands in it (the mixture, not the, uh, food processor). With the exception of the little bit of sugar on the outside, these are also pretty healthy and nutritious.

Tipsy Sugar Plums
Chatelaine Magazine, December 2004

1 cup pitted dates
1 cup pitted prunes
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup dried apricots
1 cup toasted pecan halves
1 cup unsweetened dessicated coconut
1/3 cup dark rum or orange liqueur or orange juice
1/3 cup granulated sugar

Place dates, prunes, cranberries and apricots in food processor. Pulse until fruit is coarsly chopped. Turn into medium sized bowl. Place nuts in food processor, pulse until coarsly chopped. Add to fruit, along with coconut. Drizzle in rum or juice and stir until evenly mixed and moist. Place sugar in a pie plate.

Using your hands, shape fruit mixture into 1-inch balls. Roll balls in sugar. Store between sheets of waxed paper in an airtight container. Sugarplums will keep well for several months in the refrigerator, or at room temp for several weeks. The flavour improves with age.

I have had what might possibly be the best day ever. The only thing that could make it better would be if someone were to show up at my door with a huge tray of oysters.

I hauled my butt out of bed this morning and headed to my alma mater, George Brown College, to take part in the Peace of Cake event. Every year staff, students and assorted volunteers get together and back a thousand or so fruitcakes, cookies, brownies and other treats and then package them up to be given to needy families, youth centres and the veterans in the long-term care facility at Sunnybrook hospital.

As is always the case when I leave early to give myself time to get somewhere during a storm, I arrived a half hour early. I was given an apron straight away, though, and was quickly put to work wrapping fruitcakes in saran wrap. As more volunteers arrived, I was put in charge of a group of kids from a local high school.

Many of the cakes meant for the veterans have to be diabetic-friendly, but when the baking was taking place yesterday, someone didn’t label the cakes made from Splenda properly. All that hype about how it tastes “just like sugar” is not exactly true. Sugar doesn’t make your tongue tingle.

Once the fruitcakes were wrapped, I headed out to the atrium where basket filling was in swift progress. I took up a spot at a table and started tying stuffed toys to the baskets meant for families. I sadly had to turn down the offer to accompany the delivery to the veterans hospital the next day, but I would have loved to go.

Once the baskets were complete, all the volunteers were given a cardboard box and told to help themselves to any leftovers. I brought home a fruitcake (just to see if the cake Chef Higgens made for the Queen stands up to mine), some gingerbread, rumballs and mince tarts.

This was a truly awesome way to spend a morning and for a great cause. I’ll definitely be volunteering for both the baking day and the packing day next year.

The cookie madness didn’t end there, though, as once I left the college, I met up with Greg so we could go to Christmas Around the World. He arrived with an empty Tupperware container and a bag full of Loonies and Twoonies, and we perused each table thoroughly before we went on our cookie-buying spree.

We dropped $12 at the Serbian table where most of the cookies were 50 cents each. We grabbed tiny alfajores and warm empanadas from the nice ladies working the Chilean booth. Custard tarts from Portugal, an almond tart from Switzerland, and some things dripping in honey from Macedonia all made it into our bag. I think we managed to get out without poppyseed cake, which was popular at most of the tables representing eastern European countries (Greg is not a fan of the poppyseed cake), and the ladies at the Russian table were selling cakes by the slice, which were pretty, but impractical in terms of carrying home, when you’re already carrying about 12 pounds of pastries.

Much of the stash is going in the freezer, to be enjoyed over the next few weeks with afternoon tea. As tempting as it is to gorge on sugar and chocolate and eat it all at once, I want to make “cookie day” last as long as possible.