Singaporean Heritage

I was watching an episode of No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain this past weekend. The aforementioned episode was featuring Singapore cuisine in all it's glory. My parents immigrated to Canada from Singapore. I consider myself a Canuck through and through but I know I have an innate connection to Chinese food and culture.

Singapore's geographical location as the gateway between the West/East has led to the melding of cuisines to create Nonya food. Singapore is a food country, the natives live to eat and not eat to live; food is everything. While filming, Bourdain was approached by a stranger about how to eat roast duck. Bourdain's conversation with the man is as follows:

Bourdain: "Everyone in this city, this county, has a strong opinion on food and how's it's to be eaten."
Singaporean Stranger: "Yeah, it's the only fricken' heritage we have."

So maybe, just maybe, it's in my blood to be a foodie. Destiny? Preordained? Fate? Nah, I don't believe in any of that bullshit. I'm a foodie and that's because I love food and food loves me. I wouldn't call any of this ironic or serendipitous, it simply just is.

And on one final note, the next time I'm in Singapore I have to eat this:

Sup Tulang - Bone Soup

sup tulang Popular hawker dish. ‘Sup tulang’ literally means ‘bone soup’. This Indian Muslim dish consists of mutton leg and shin bones cooked in a spicy chilli sauce with a rich mutton soup base. The cartilage and marrow are eaten.

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The Birds

My oven broke down last week, the bottom element had burnt out and sent sparks flying. We had just replaced the element so I decided this would be a good weekend to put it to the test by roasting a chicken. Roasting a chicken isn't a simple task, a good roasted chicken takes skill. I'm almost certain that there are too many people eating overcooked and dried out chicken. A good roast chicken is moist, tender, flavourful and has a wonderful crisp skin. It's not hard to achieve it simply takes patience and attentiveness.

I purchased a grain fed and raised without antibiotics chicken. It was a plump bird weighing in at just over 3 pounds. The process for my roast chicken is to brine, truss, season and roast. Simple, but still a time consuming process that requires planning and the proper preparation.

My step-mother owns a canary who's cage is in the kitchen. As I was preparing the chicken we had a bit of a dialogue:

*Loud chirping*
"What? This? (motioning to the chicken) This isn't my fault, don't look at me!"
*Chirping changes to loud singing*
"You're a loud little bugger."
*Singing continues*
"I'm not afraid to cook you."
*Silence*

It was a humorous moment that I shared with the canary.

So how did the chicken turn out?


My oven is working just fine, again. Here's to good food and good company, even if my company was only a canar

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Chef Ferran Adrià

I was fortunate enough to attend an Interview and Q&A session with Ferran Adrià this week. I was told a week earlier about his appearance in Toronto and at first was reluctant to go because of the cost. However, I rethought my decision and figured that I would be incredibly fortunate to attend this event.

The afternoon was to be an Interview followed by a Question & Answer session from the audience. However, Chef Adrià came with a presentation. He didn't talk about food, technique, theory, or cooking, instead he presented us with his philosophy. Philosophy of what it means to cook, eat, create, and work as a cook.

I think I'd be doing a great disservice and injustice to the man if I attempted to summarize his entire presentation. The two most significant points of his lecture, to me (as I understood them), were:

Technique

Everything is based upon technique. For him to be creative and truly revolutionary everything was upon the basis of technique. He spoke using the metaphor of creating a new written language; that language being based upon single characters or letters, the techniques. From this foundation of technique you built and composed recipes and dishes in the same sense that you built words. Words are then naturally followed by sentences and further followed by phrases and paragraphs. Technique is the fundamental basis of everything.

Creativity

"If someone hands you a card that says Creative, do not believe them."

Ferran spoke about creativity and how anything can be the basis of new creation and ideas. Creation is simply always there, it is the ability to take hold of the opportunity of creation that is special on its own.

Chef Adrià is so far ahead of our time, he has nothing but himself and his creations to benchmark against. He is the Leonardo da Vinci of the modern gastronomic revolution. The best Chef in the world who cooks at the best restaurant in the world.

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Food NETwork

Somehow my food has ended up on other places on the WWW where I don't post to.

http://tastespotting.com/detail/11636

http://recipe-news-info.my-ani.com/node/1286027

I was asked permission for the Taste Spotting post but not for the My-Ani post. In fact, I'm not bothered by the Taste Spotting post as it still gives me credit on my work the latter website does not. In fact, the second website is linking the photo directly to my Photobucket. I'm amazed that they don't even attempt to host the image on their own.

I've been saying this for the longest time but I really need to begin watermarking/marking my images to protect my intellectual property.

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"You're not good enough..."

At work I was asked to replicate several recipes for an upcoming magazine launch. The purpose of the exercise was for marketing to review the recipes developed by our Chefs for the magazine. They were simple recipes but a lot needed to be done with the utmost accuracy; everything needed to be measured and timed.

I prepared my mis en place in the morning, taped the recipes onto the counter, and had felt pretty good about myself. I thought everything would fall in place and I was well prepared. I know I had felt nervous as this was my first time doing this but they weren't difficult recipes. Still, I don't know exactly where the nervousness came from, I wish I did.

When it came down to cooking I moved with speed and precision. My mis was good but I soon learned that it wasn't good enough. I was making a salad and left out an ingredient, peas. I was supposed to measure out a cup of frozen peas, microwave, shock, mix with remaining ingredients. I got caught up in other recipes and left out the peas from the recipe, I had faltered.

When I realized this gaff I instantly knew that I wasn't good enough. I had made a glaring error and the only person to blame was myself. I needed to focus more intensely and plan and prepare better. In my head I heard a repeated echo of, "You're not good enough, you're not good enough..." over and over again.

It's true, I'm not good enough, but I'll get better and better. Making errors and mistakes is understandable, if not forgivable. It's what the young cook does with their mistakes that matters.

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