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.     

Hairy men on Ice 5 - Insipid Disney Characters on Ice Nil

A perfect winter cocktail. One part speed, one part skill to one part sweat with a taint of spilt blood, shaken vigorously and served on ice in a perspex rimmed glass. 

In late January I attended my very first National Hockey League (NHL) game to watch the Vancouver Canucks take on the Calgary Flames. The Canucks are my adopted team and fast becoming my second greatest sporting love behind the Geelong Football Club. 

Normally when grown men have fantasies about twins they often involve pig-tails and school girl uniforms which leaves me feeling slightly confused about my school boy crush on two bearded, red headed brothers from Sweden. It was a great thrill to see the Sedin twins (Daniel and Henrik) skate onto the ice in Rogers Arena, their combination of sublime skills and preternatural understanding of each other's game has made them the most devastating one-two combination in the league this year.

There are not too many sports where even the warm up seems to be fun but there really is something mesmerising and hypnotic about watching the warm up skate. Seeing the players circling and pirouetting reminded me of a set piece from Footlight Parade, if you iced over the lameness of synchronised swimming dispensed with the nose clips and added facial hair and blood lust to the mix.

Although the result didn't quite go according to script all of the desired elements were present: Canada's Olympic Gold medal winning goal-tender Roberto Luongo 'between the pipes' (that means in goal in Canadian); Kevin Bieksa 'dropping the gloves' (punching on in Canadian) plus an overtime period and finally a shoot-out.

Thankfully in this hockey mad country and particularly with the Canucks sitting at the top of the league currently I won't be the only male hanging out in Vancouver sports bars hoping to run into the Sedin twins. Even if fate intervenes and the three of us aren't meant to be together, I promise that no child of mine will ever be subjected to any exhibition on ice that doesn't involve two grown men smashing each other into a perspex partition.

The Marine Building

At 355 Burrard Street in downtown Vancouver stands an edifice from the golden age of office work. The men that worked in behind desks in this period were so large and powerful that no modern day cubicle could contain their twelve feet, rippling forms. During this time memorandums were delivered via raptors as all men were well trained in the skill of falconry. Sadly those days are but a faint memory kept alive by monumental buildings such as the Marine Building.
When it opened its brass revolving doors for the first time in 1930, the Marine Building (which cost nearly double its' original budget) was a thing of splendour. From the uniformed doormen that greeted you to the sailor-suited women who operated the five high speed elevators those who entered knew that they were in a shrine to modernity and greatness.
These days it provides some fascinating historical insights into what Canada was like in the 1930s. From the Art Deco detailing we learn that Canada had a highly sophisticated defence programme. Squadrons of powerfully built Canadian geese patrolled the skies ensuring the security of Air Canada's burgeoning bi-plane and zeppelin fleets. This was supplemented by the navies impressive collection of sail ships many of which were hand-me-downs from Mother England's Royal Navy (which was starting to learn that in no longer ruled the waves). This in turn allowed the Canadian government to begin phasing out the remnants of the Spanish Armada ships that it still had in active service.
Another interesting point to note is that of the image of the rising sun radiating light and warmth across Canada. In the early 1930s the tilt of earth's axis was more pronounced which meant that Canada enjoyed warmer days and longer daylight hours. At the time Vancouver was a major holiday resort for Mexicans who were trying to escape the winter blues by fleeing north of the border to lie on the beach, drink cheap Moosehead beers with lime and eat traditional British Columbia corn tortilla tacos (a popular dish that they took back to Mexico with them).
The Marine Building remains a beacon from another age shining its' light across the tempestuous waters of modern architecture. Guiding us past the double glazed, aluminium framed, stainless steel gilded reefs that scuttle architects. Leading us to the safe harbour of a time when real men wore suits and soared to their offices in the sky in polished brass elevators.

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.