Martin Luther King Day

"A man who won't die for something is not fit to live."

Just over a week ago America celebrated the birthday (albeit two days late) of the man that made this statement. Considering the post September 11 paranoia that still grips a fair portion of the media and the general public, it is hard to imagine such an extremist standpoint coming from one of America's most venerated figures and yet it did. In a culture where xenophobes peddle fears about halal food and "creeping sharia"in the name of God, it begs the question whether Martin Luther King Jr's message is any less relevant or confronting than it was in the 1960s.

Sadly discussions of Dr King's legacy are spoken about as a done deal and not a work in progress. This highlights exactly what the impact of his death was; a loss of zeal and focus. The greatest strength of true leadership is also the source of its' fragility. Leaders are the very embodiment of the vision of the cause and when their leadership dies (be that assassination or ethical compromise) so does the singular purpose. Great leaders like Martin Luther King provide a distilled collective voice and when they are gone it evaporates and becomes a nebulous and diluted dialogue.


"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

To this day when you hear his words there is life in them and the perpetual challenge to lead a better life and make the world a better place. This is why it is sickening to see his legacy subverted, the ideals of which he spoke are not the fodder for motivational t-shirts. His raison d'etre was not to build his personal brand and yet he has been turned into MLK. I guess MLK removes the negative out spoken, black man association from the brand like disguising the Southern fried origins of KFC. Hopefully we will see the release of the semi-biographical BIM (Black In Men) starring Will Smith as MLK providing a safe environment for alien races in the United States. You can't help but wonder he would think about the "MLK inspired" black and gold sneakers worn by NBA stars in his honour.

 "All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."

In this statement Martin Luther King expressed a world view that is completely at odds with the USA's ever increasing fascination with winning. The notion that "labor" or struggle has dignity is loser talk in a nation in the grip of Super Bowl fever. When in the first round of the NFL play-offs the lowly ranked Seattle Seahawks defeated last years champions (New Orleans Saints) a commentator remarked that "America loves the underdog." A more accurate statement would have been the America loves underdogs that win. The focus on the victor is so extreme that post game coverage almost completely erases the memory of the vanquished no matter how valiant their on field endeavour was.
As the television spectacle of the Super Bowl fast approaches (last years game drew the largest television audience in American history) another title race is gaining momentum. American Idol has been given a face lift (or several with the addition cosmetic surgery ravaged Steven Tyler) with new judges (J Lo and the Aerosmith front man) but no amount of tucks and botox can conceal the emptiness of this title. Despite this, season after season thousands of Americans circle the blocks to audition for opportunity to win their way into a creative and fiscally asphyxiating contract on a major label that will ultimately resign them to the musically irrelevant scrap heap with all of the other Idol winners. Success has no objective parameters relating to quality or excellence it is all about winning.
While this dichotomy of winners and losers remains the discourse to describe any field of endeavour there will be no nobility in striving or struggle. Consequently this creates little to no incentive "to rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity." Considering the hardships being endured by the majority of the US population they are by their own societies' definition losers.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." This remains to this day one of the most beautiful and profoundly challenging statements of democracy. When a nation is built on such a foundation, equality is a non-negotiable and the pursuit of it remains a ceaseless quest.
Recently the case of the man with the golden voice highlighted the fact that the truth that all men are created equal is clearly no longer self evident. In a truly great democratic society homelessness should be viewed as an intolerable condition. Rights cease to be unalienable and democratic when a society works on a merit based criteria where the power of You Tube and the mass media adjudicates that because a man has a mellifluous voice that he should be elevated out of his squalor.
In a period of American history when there are high levels of unemployment and national debt, there is little doubt as to Dr King's thoughts on a society that prioritises spending money on foreign conflicts before it assists the marginalised within its' own borders.

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."

The vision which he had and the truths of which Martin Luther King spoke whilst rooted in a particular time and place in history contain a universal challenge to all mankind. I believe that he would be saddened if he saw the state of the world because while some things have improved, his work is far from complete. It would like making Emmeline Pankhurst watch Sex In The City 2 while trying to convince her that it is a show about female liberation and empowerment in the twenty first century. When he spoke of "the fierce urgency of Now" it was a long way removed from the immediacy that we demand in modern life but is a far worthier use of our time and resources. If nothing else Martin Luther King Jr Day serves as a reminder that the world still needs to hear and listen to his voice.

Hedgehogs, Black trumpets and Watermelons: A Dinner for Surrealists

Watermelon radish. 

Hedgehog (left) and Black trumpet mushrooms (right). 

I picked up these wonderful ingredients at the Granville Island Market today for dinner.

They became a wild mushroom and pinenut ragout that went with sauteed ricotta gnocchi and a simple green lettuce, basil and radish salad.

Sauteed ricotta gnocchi with pinenuts.

I was so pleased with how the gnocchi worked out that I thought that I would share the recipe.

Sauteed Ricotta Gnocchi

500g ricotta, drained

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk

1 cup plain flour

Combine the ricotta, salt and eggs in a bowl and mix well.

Add all of the flour and mix thoroughly then blend for a short time in a food processor or with a stick blender.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and allow to rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

 Dust a bench with flour and divide the dough into six portions. Roll each portion to form a log with a 1 cm diameter and using a floured paring knife cut into 1 cm lengths. Note: Use sufficient flour for dusting  to prevent sticking and use a plastic bowl scrapper to lift the finished gnocchi onto a floured tray. 

The gnocchi can be frozen at this stage and defrosted for use at some later date.

Blanch the gnocchi in small batches in a large pot of boiling, salted water until they all rise to the top. Drain and serve immediately or refresh quickly in ice water then drain.

To saute the gnocchi heat olive oil and butter in a wide frying pan over medium heat. When hot enough add the refreshed and drained gnocchi, ensuring that they separated. Leave the gnocchi alone without moving it to allow it to develop a golden brown colour then turn them over and do the same on the other side.

To finish, toss with sauce and serve.

Kimchi: A Cinderella Tale

 Recently we added a delicious new dish to the menu at work, braised pork cheeks with house made kimchi and a flash fried egg. During this time I also received a copy of David Chang's Momofuku cook book and discovered an excellent Korean supermarket called H-Mart. This confluence of events has drawn the waft of spicy, fermented cabbage to my attention.

Driven by my compulsion to make my own paechu kimchi (napa cabbage kimchi) I turned to the power of the internet for instruction.

The Ultimate Kimchi offered an interesting and unusual methodology. It required the broccoli (?) to be "cut into byte-sized pieces." I was not sure whether this meant that they need to be cut into eight bits or just an indication that the broccoli is to be sliced so infinitesimally small as to be negligible in the finished product. As I read through the recipe I came to the following passage:

"After sprinkling salt, gently stir it into the cabbage. Do this with your hands, rather than with a tool. (We'll discuss more on this later.) Use your hands like you're hugging the cabbage. Move them gently around the sides, and then gather them into the center. Then push the cabbage to the sides (gently) and pull your hands around the edges like you're swimming with a breaststroke.

The hugging motion is gentle. Generate love while you're doing it. Its hard to overstate the importance of this step. Whenever we make Kimchi, it comes out good, but nearly as good as Grandmaster's. We're pretty sure that the missing ingredient is love. No one generates love with the intensity and purity that Grandmaster does. Its interesting to watch Grandmaster at times like these, too. If someone speaks to her, she may nod, or smile, or she may not react all -- but her concentration never wavers. She is completely absorbed in what she is doing. She is also completely aware of everything going on around her -- who is saying what, who is doing what, and where they are -- but she has her attention focused on one thing -- and that concentration makes a big difference in her kimchi." 

Eternally grateful for receiving such insightful tips I set about preparing for my first kimchi. I indiscriminately hugged all of the cabbages in the local grocers until they asked me to leave because they confused my expression of love for making out with the savoys. Apparently they also found my behaviour inappropriate at the local indoor pool where they took issue with my "swimming with a breaststroke" technique.

Having plastered the apartment with Post-it note reminders to not forget to include love, I thought it would be advisable to cross-reference with a second website.  Maangchi You Tube tutorial was highly instructive and more significantly I wasn't left emotionally crippled by the feeling of inadequacy at having to compare to the Grandmaster.  

 Drawing on these lessons and using the recipe for paechu kimchi and kakdugi (radish kimchi) from the Momofuku cookbook as a guide, I devised the following recipe.

Nappa cabbage and radish kimchi

1 medium and 3 baby Napa cabbages, outer leaves removed and washed

1 medium Korean mu radish, cut into 3cm cubes and juliennne the scraps 

4 tbsp coarse sea salt

3/4 cup and 4 tbsp sugar

30 garlic cloves

30 slices of peeled ginger

3 tbsp salted shrimp

3/4 cup kochukaru (Korean chili powder)

1/2 cup fish sauce

1/2 cup usukuchi (light soy sauce)

1 bunch of spring onions, sliced

1/2 bunch of garlic chives, cut into 3cm lengths

1 large carrot, peeled and julienned

Cut the cabbages in half and cut the medium cabbage into 3cm pieces. Salt the cabbage and cubed mu radish, add the 4 tbsp of sugar and refrigerate overnight.

Mince the garlic, ginger and salted shrimp. Add the fish sauce, kochukaru, usukuchi and remaining sugar. Adjust the dressing with water to achieve a thick sauce consistency.

Thoroughly drain the cabbage and combine with the dressing (be sure to be wearing gloves for this stage). Then stir in the garlic chives, spring onions, julienned carrot and radish.

Refrigerate for at least a week. The flavour will develop the longer it is allowed to sit.

Having completed my kimchi today I was struck not only by its' intoxicating potency of flavour and colour but it reminded me of the Cinderella ingredients that are part of so many Asian cuisines. As with the salted shrimp in this recipe often there are these elements that smell and taste like sucking on the ugly step-sister's toes. However wave the fairy god mother's stick blender over them and they transform into something with depth, interest and a complex, exotic beauty that brings harmony and balance to the land. 

Stanley Park at dusk

The Weekend Ahead

Napa cabbage (or Chinese cabbage) for my Kim Chi.

It's 1:30 AM and my weekend has begun.

I have big plans for the next two days, these plans include, in no particular order, the following:-

Make kimchi (the process is already underway as I salted the napa cabbage and Korean raddish before starting work today).

Undertake a solo polar bear swim in English Bay (cue manly inspirational music and a montage of me climbing stairs). The Polar Bear swim is a Canadian New Year's day tradition where willing (and ideally blubber insulated) participants take the plunge into the icy ocean. Despite the best of intentions I missed the opportunity to partake in this annual event so instead I have created a one-time exhibition swim called "The Chiller in Van-illa." Stay tuned for details as one man in board-shorts pits himself against the might of the Pacific Ocean.

Make the trip across the Burrard Street Bridge to West Broadway to sample the reportedly delicious pastries from Thomas Haas.

Watch the Vancouver Canucks as they seek to continue their best winning streak in their forty year franchise. This streak has the Canucks leading the entire league and chasing their ninth straight win as they take on their closest rival in the Western Conference; the Detroit Red Wings. Exciting times to live in this success starved hockey town as this immensely talented and well balanced team builds towards great things. 

A pistachio croissant and selection of macarons from Thomas Haas plus the best coffee I've had in Vancouver from 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters.

How the first day of the new year ended.

Discustation

Discustation is a concept that I threw up a while ago, it refers to a meal of small tasting courses where each course endeavours to be more repellent than the one that preceded it. Having coined this term I feel well within my linguistic rights to change its definition.
The new meaning of discustation is far broader in its scope and refers to any use of language that makes food or eating less appetising. I won't endeavour to conceal the primary objective of this new term which is a search and destroy, culinary witch hunt. Places offering Asian tapas have been served notice the Larousse Inquisition will soon be knocking at your door. Menus will be excommunicated and non-believers char-grilled at the steak. Please feel free to dob in offenders. Your efforts will make this a safer world for the appetites of your children and your children's children.

A less than glossary of terms:
Floats: Ice cream sodas otherwise known as 'spiders'. Floats just makes them sound like buoyant dead bodies.
Steamers: Although the term steamer brings to mind images of warm dog poo on a cold day, they are in fact steamed burritos.
Jerk chicken: A Jamaican speciality of hot spice marinated chicken that's smoked over an aromatic wood. Undoubtedly this is a delicious dish but is it named such because it has to be produced an obnoxious Rastafarian. Probably even more disturbing is the moment a male colleague assured that "I have to try his jerk sauce."
Dredge: It is going to make difficult viewing when an American Food Network presenter exhumes a cadaver while dredging fish fillets.
Broil: Not content to grill food, North Americans insist on broiling, a medieval practice of torturing people with overcooked, rubbery food.
Smokie: A smoked hot dog coupling the public love for sausages with the addictive powers of carcinogens.
Tube steak: A beginners guide as to how to make a processed meat sound even more unnatural, apply a very literal description to the product.
Japa dog: An iconic Vancouver hot dog with Japanese influenced accompaniments. Where this product goes wrong is to create a subconscious connection between the frankfurt and the source of the unspecified meat. Shiba inu? Akita inu?
Potstickers: Generally speaking you wouldn't name a style of dish after a dinner party disaster which leaves you with the cremated remains of beef bourguignon in the bottom of your Le Creuset and hours of scrubbing ahead of you.

Blacklisted Eateries:
The Dog House: There are unquestionably some gourmet dog food products on the market but if you are going to brand yourself a family restaurant don't expect to have anyone on less than four legs salivating at the prospect of eating at The Dog House.
The Beaver and Mullet Bistro: A misguided Canadian attempt at surf and turf or lodge and school.
Ho Ho's Yummy Food: Risking being accused by ghosts of Christmas past of failing to see the enduring appeal of associating a Chinese restaurant with Santa's rumbling chortle, yo no hablo Chino .
Beard Papa's: A successful international franchise that makes unearthly light cream puffs but why associate a choux pastry range with a hairy, pipe smoking mariner?
The Smoking Dog French Bistro: Apparently having cigarette ash and dog hair in the Ratatouille is a drawcard.

This is merely the beginning, a drop in the spittoon of life but I will not tire in this culinary crusade until taste buds across the globe are free from the tyranny of discustation.