Sometimes I stubble and fall

All sports have their inexplicable superstitions and traditions and in this regard ice hockey is no different. For an outsider it would hard to justify the logic behind the practice of throwing octopus onto the ice during the Detroit Red Wings home play-off games. Octopus tossing in land locked Detroit dates back to the 1952 play-offs symbolising the, then, eight wins required to win the Stanley Cup. To a Wings fan the talismanic properties of the cephalopod are unquestionable as it delivered them the Cup in three out of four years from 1952 which is why the tossing (followed by the twirling of the octopus by a zamboni driver) still persists today.This season alone has seen this activity mimicked across the league with waffles (in Toronto), catfish (in Nashville) and salmon (in Vancouver) raining onto the ice.
In the highly competitive world of professional sport sometimes it comes down to the "one percenters" to bring the team up to the one hundred and ten percent required to taste success. The Vancouver Canucks turn to Towel Power to provide them with the edge as they vie for their first Stanley Cup in franchise history. Unlike the regionally specific one percenters like towel twirling, one tradition is universally observed by all those who are striving to secure Lord Stanley's over-sized chalice: the play-off beard.
The play-off beard is a serious undertaking, that transforms the face of hockey from a Gillette commercial into a festival of facial follicles. 
I do not believe that I can over emphasise my importance to the Vancouver Canucks organisation. Since my arrival in Vancouver, the team has turned some sketchy early season form into the best regular season in franchise history. It is no small coincidence that my presence here has helped the Canucks claim there first President's Trophy and it is why the team looks to me now to grow a play-off beard of distinction.
My beard has become so emblematic of the team's fortunes that it begs the question which came first the stubble or the success.
In the first round the Canucks met the Chicago Blackhawks, last years champions and the vanquishers of Vancouver for the past two years in the play-offs. For the early part of the series my stubble looked strong and steady growing in form and stature as the games progressed. At three-nil up in a best of seven series my beard appeared to have an unassailable lead but suddenly the follicle foundations became shaky. The beard output became uneven and unpredictable, in some areas the growth halted completely and confusion reigned as hairs were going off in every direction. This lack of unity in beard purpose allowed the Blackhawks to storm back and level the series. Heading into the deciding game several questions were being raised around Vancouver about the quality of my beard and whether it is was it was all that it was cracked up to be as the phantom itches of forty years of play-off beards came back to plague the minds of Canuck fans. 
Game Seven justified the hype providing an intense and see-sawing contest. At times the Blackhawks seemed be a Mach 5 with aggressive, razor sharp blades coming from all angles threatening to prematurely cut short my play-off beard aspirations. In the end it took an overtime goal send Chicago packing and the Canucks, who had sustained a few nicks and cuts, through to the second round.
The Conference semi-final series against the Nashville Predators proved to be one of those dour periods of beard growth where there is not very much excitement. Keen observers will note the discipline in the trimming and maintaining of form against a team that has built its' reputation on the thick defensive lather it throws over opposing play-off beards. In the end my beard prevailed and Nashville returned to the two things it understands better than ice: country and western music.
The Vancouver Canucks have harnessed my beard power and returned to the Western Conference Finals for the first time in seventeen years and now face another perennial under-achiever: the San Jose Sharks. Last nights victory in the opening game has my stubble looking thick, even and fashionable, once again providing hope that the Canucks are only seven wins away from scratching the forty year Stanley Cup play-off beard itch.

Saturday night's (Hockey Night in Canada) alright for fighting (game misconduct)

The ice hockey world is abuzz with the news that quietly a new superpower has emerged. This puck pounding nation is better known to be a wide brown land (and that's not because the ice is dirty). Be afraid Canada. Be very afraid. Australia has qualified for the ice hockey world championships!

Before Canada's reign as the preeminent hockey nation ends, the Vancouver Canucks have given them hope that the Stanley Cup might be wrested from the Yankee grasp for the first time since the Montreal Canadien triumphed in 1993.

Clearly Canadian mothers are not familiar with the precautionary phrase "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye." In a game which involves a hard rubber disk travelling at speeds of up to 170 kilometres per hour it would seem obvious that eye protection should be mandatory. Recently Manny Malhotra, a key player in this years all conquering Vancouver Canucks, was struck in the eye when the puck deflected off another players stick. Malhotra who was not wearing a visor at the time has had to have multiple operations to save his sight.

Manny Malhotra's injury has been a sobering counter-point to what has been a record breaking season for the Canucks, who for the first time in their forty year history have earned the President's Trophy for the best regular season record in league. Their regular season performance has been so comprehensive that they also own all of the key statistical areas ( best goals for and against, best power play and penalty killing). Impressive as the season has been so far, ultimately this is a grail quest. Only the play-offs will decide whether the Knights of Rain City will retake the Holy Land, retrieving the Stanley Cup from the Chicago infidels. 

Central to the team's success are the identical Sedin twins. Quietly this season they have gone about their jobs. Henrik has amassed a league leading number of scoring assists while his brother Daniel's lead in the scoring race has him poised to follow up Henrik's Most Valuable Player award last year with his own triumph this year.
As with most Swedish products the Sedin twins are too ergonomic for their own good. Much like Ikea people give them a hard time because they are mass produced and they make it look so simple but  everyone wishes they had them in their home as they're incredibly functional and well designed. As with Volvo they are deceptive, not overly loud or built around big engines but they run smoothly, efficiently, safely and retain their value while others around them depreciate. Hockey like the automotive industry also has the element of distrust about foreign built models. Locally made or not when in years to come, people are wondering about what became of this or that Justin Bieber of the National Hockey League every record collection will contain Sedin Gold. This best of, which like Abba Gold is packed full of greatest hits, may be maligned for it's joyful harmonies and its distinct lack of male bravado but somehow no collection is complete without it.
Their hockey legacy will forever be as two S80's cruising in tandem down the ice, constructing plays with over-sized graphite Allen keys while the melodious tones of "The Winner Takes It All" serenade their triumph of Swedish substance over style.

The people of Vancouver are on edge, rising levels of expectation are tempered by the knowledge that within the few years a dingo will steal Canada's baby, as Australian teams such as the Coolongatta Quokkas begin to flood the NHL. The buses in Vancouver proudly trumpet "Go Canucks Go!" because even the bus drivers here know there is only one destination that the people care about and that's the Stanley Cup. As the Sedin twins take the wheel and drive the Canucks deep into the playoffs, the hopes of the province are conjoined with them.

Little Mr Muffet sat on his tuffet eating his curds and whey.

Migneron de Charlevoix, unpasteurised cow's milk cheese from  Charlevoix (Baie-Saint-Paul), Quebec (left) and Petit Basque sheep's milk cheese from the Pyrenees, France (right).

It's true that when it comes to stenographers you really get what you pay for. When Irving Berlin dictated the lyrics to the song that we are familiar with as "Cheek to cheek", he originally intended it to be a homage the American dairy industry. "Cheese to cheese", as it was entitled, would have had the following lyrics had Irving not unwisely recited the words to a close friend who had deafened himself by dancing the grizzly bear and the chicken walk too close to the the orchestra in New York's ragtime clubs (for the record this friend redeemed himself by making Berlin's "White-mould Christmas"more readily accessible).

 

"Heaven, I’m in heaven

And my cholesterol makes my heart beats so that I can hardly speak

And I seem to find the happiness I seek

When we’re out together feasting cheese to cheese"

Recently I discovered Les Amis du Fromage and I would have to say I that I concur with Mr Berlin when I say that I was in heaven. Les Amis du Fromage is the best cheese shop that I have ever been into, it's three hundred and sixty degrees of cheese.

It stocks not only some of my all time favourites like Petit Basque (and it's Pyrenees brother Etorki) but possibly more exciting is the range of Canadian cheeses that they have available. These include local British Columbian cheeses from Poplar Grove and the Kootenay Alpine Cheese Company as well as from Quebec, Canada's provincial outpost for cheese eating surrender monkeys.

If cheeses such as the delicious washed-rind La Sauvagine are anything to go by, it would appear that being of French derivation endows people with super-human abilities. They have retractable, sterilised, stainless steel claws for cutting curds; hidden rennet excreting glands that allow them set vast, vats of milk; from their wrists they can sling a webbing of cheese cloth that allows them to drain curds from any structure and finally they possess chameleon-like abilities transforming from white mould to ash coated to an orange washed rind in seconds. Little is known about how these beings came to live amongst the Canadian population but in a sick twist of fate it has come to light that these dairy demi-gods are rendered powerless but many of the alien Canadian dairy products in particular orange cheese (otherwise known as the Quebecois Kryptonite).

We live in a frightening world full of refrigeration units stocked with substances called Homo, Half and Half or simply 2%. Thankfully while most milk falls a long way from the udder these days, there are still a few remaining strongholds such as Le Amis du Fromage where we can be fortified by the unadulterated, unpasteurised, full fat nectar of the teat.  

Etorki sheep's milk cheese from the Pyrenees, France; La Sauvagine, pasteurised cow's milk from Quebec;  La Besace du Berger pasteurised goat's milk cheese from France (left to right).

Small & Oats: You Make My Creams Come True

For this dish I drew on the David Chang (Momofuku) "Cereal Milk" dessert for inspiration. I appreciated his idea infusing milk with a cereal (in his case toasted cornflakes) before using it to make a dessert but departed from his more avant garde approach of pairing it with avocado puree and a "chocolate hazelnut thing." Instead I chose a more homely combination, one that shied away from excessive sweetness, that possessed a certain lightness and an almost savoury quality. Having rolled oats as my starting point lead me to make something that mimicked the flavours of a fruit crumble.

Wobbly Crumble (Serves 6)

1/4 cup rolled oats

300 ml thickened cream

100 ml sour cream

50 ml milk

1/4 vanilla bean (seeds scraped)

20g brown sugar

10g caster sugar

generous pinch of salt

2 gelatin leaves (4 grams)

Preheat oven to 150C. Toast oats on a tray until they are a golden brown (around 20 minutes). Once they have cooled for a couple of minutes add them to 200 ml of the cream and the milk and allow to sit for 45 minutes.

Strain out the oats and use a rubber spatula to gently extract 200 ml of liquid (some will have been absorbed by the oats). Transfer the cream/milk into a saucepan with the vanilla bean, sugars and salt. Place over a low heat, stirring regularly, to dissolve the sugar. While this is happening bloom or soften the gelatin leaves in cold water (I like to do it in ice water) until they become floppy (2-3 minutes). At this point remove them remove water and squeeze them to get rid of excess moisture, then stir them into the milk mixture until dissolved. Strain into a bowl (you can rinse and reserve the vanilla bean for another use). Cool to room temperature.

Fold in the sour cream and pass ensure that there are no lumps. Whip the remaining 100 ml of cream to soft peaks and fold into the mix. Divide the mix between six, lightly greased, molds (around 100 ml capacity). Allow to set in the refrigerator for around five hours.

To serve, unmold the set cream (to do this gently use a finger to pull it away from the mold on one side creating an air-pocket that should allow it to slide out onto the plate). Scatter the plate with the apple and blackberries and the reduced fruit syrup. Finish the plate with the caramelised rolled oats.

Stewed Fruit 

3 Granny Smith apples (peeled, cored and cut into a large dice)

1 punnet of blackberries (washed)

2 tbsp butter

1/4 vanilla bean, seeds scraped

brown sugar

caster sugar

white wine

 a generous pinch of .salt 

lemon juice

Ratios for this are difficult are inexact as the ripeness of the fruit will dictate how much sugar is required, how much liquid cooks out of them and how much lemon juice is required to provide balance to the sauce.

To a large frying pan over medium/high heat add the butter, apple, salt, vanilla bean and sufficient brown sugar to coat the apple. Once the sugar has dissolved and the apple has started to soften, add the blackberries and deglaze the pan with white wine. Cook until the apple is soft but still has bite and the blackberries have bled some colour but not collapsed. Remove the fruit from the pan and reduce the syrup until it has thickened (adding caster sugar if necessary). Adjust the flavour with lemon juice to achieve the desired balance between acidity and sweetness.

Caramelised oats

1/4 cup rolled oats

2 tbsp caster sugar

pinch of salt

1 tbsp butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 150C.

Combine the oats, salt and butter, then sprinkle evenly with the sugar.

Bake on a lined tray until the sugar caramelises and turns a deep golden colour ( at least 20 minutes). 

Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Store in a sealed container at room temperature for up to a week. 

Quintessence

I have an abiding memory of my mother wolf's description of tasting the quintessential orange. It was on a ferry ride in Istanbul, in 1968, that she had the orange against which all other oranges would be compared.
The notion of encountering the quintessence of an ingredient is a culinary holy grail quest.

It is the convergence of simplicity and completeness in a single bite. The distillation of the purest form of an ingredient. It makes me feel like when I look at sculptures by Alberto Giacometti, at times they are not the most attractive representations of form but in stripping away the superfluous elements, somehow they capture the most vital part: the soul. Giacometti's portraits are at times unnerving, in that as a viewer you feel like you are prying into the inner most thoughts and secrets of the bronzed figure before you.

Encountering the essence of a person in a sculpture may be both moving and unsettling but when you come upon this quality in an ingredient it is heavenly. The wonderful thing about tasting quintessence is that it defies hype, superlatives, best of's, it cannot be revisited or competed against; it just simply is. In that mouthful, at that moment in time that person was part of something complete and incomparable.

Some chefs are true Crusaders in their unflinching resolve to capture this culinary last covenant but few have the skills, knowledge, patience and empathy to complete this quest. Dan Hunter from The Royal Mail in Dunkeld, Victoria, is truly a knight of the covenant. Since eating at The Royal Mail over two years ago I have held the unwavering belief that it will come to be recognised to be not only one of Australia's best restaurants (it has already been named the best regional restaurant in Australia for three consecutive years by Gourmet Traveller) but one of the great restaurants of the world. Set against the breath-taking backdrop of the Grampians, Dan Hunter produces exquisite dishes driven by location, seasonality and purity of flavour. It was particularly this last aspect that struck me when I ate there, reflecting on my meal I have never had a succession of courses like that where everything on the plate tasted like it's truest form. It takes remarkable talent and conviction to achieve this feat once but particularly to repeat this day after day, service after service.

For the rest of us mere culinary mercenaries who can't afford to eat the ten course omnivore degustation at The Royal Mail everyday, we have to seek solace in the fact that each day brings the possibility of a chance encounter with a sublime mouthful.
The following are some the wonderful things that have passed between my lips recently:

• Agassiz hazelnuts- These nuts come from a town not far out of Vancouver and they are like no hazelnut that I have ever had. These fresh hazelnuts are sweet, rich, smooth and completely without any tannic, bitter aftertaste.
• British Columbia white anchovies- Hand filleting pounds of these small fish is no chore when at the end you get to eat white anchovies that have been freshly marinated with lemon juice, garlic, parsley and olive oil.
• Red Fife flour- Recently we started making the bread at work with Red Fife flour which is a heritage Canadian bread flour that was saved by the Slow Food movement in Canada. The difference in flavour between bread made with flour such as this or a generic white flour is worlds apart. This bread is full of depth, character and structure (it reminds me of Baker D. Chirico's bread) and it demands to be eaten warm and lathered with butter (note this means good butter and not some namby pamby spread with various additives that are supposed to benefit your heart) or toasted and topped with fresh white anchovies.
• Butter fish- This fish is also known as Black Cod (although not technically a cod) and Sable fish but to paraphrase the bard (or Anne Hathaway who was probably more likely to have done the cooking in the Shakespeare household) "What is in a name? That which we call a Sable fish Would by any other name taste as sweet." This is quite simply one of the most delicious tasting fish I have ever eaten, its' firm flesh giving way to yield its' creamy, buttery flavour. At home I seared the skin side before poaching it in a tomato and fresh tamarind prawn broth with Savoury clams and okra. 
• La Ghianda's Vitello tonatto ciabatta- Often restaurants are guilty of over complicating food and a sandwich like this is a salient reminder of the joy of simplicity. Vitello tonnato is by it's nature an ugly dish that makes for great eating. The temptation is to pull a Professor Henry Higgins and try and turn cold veal with a tuna sauce into Audrey Hepburn. La Ghianda (the deli associated with the restaurant La Quercia, where I can't wait to eat) to their credit have simply dressed Eliza Doolittle in modest ciabatta and sent her out into society.

I will never know how that orange tasted in the warm Turkish sunshine of 1968 but even in the cold, abrasive Vancouver daylight, the possibility exists for my own moment of tasting quintessence.