Stomachs on legs are proud to present

On Sunday I went to my first Aussie BBQ in a very long time. The weather was a balmy 30 degrees, I had spent the morning mowing the lawn and doing washing (just like neighbours) and at 3 pm I hitched a ride with some friends to the party with my 6 pack of grolsch and a melon

As to be expected, men grilled meat and others played cricket on the street



All the Southeast Asian girls had prearranged to buy all the ingredients for som tum and set about making it in the garden, sadly there is no green papaya to be found in Canberra so they made do with carrot instead.



As they busied themselves with pounding and chopping, I couldn't help but make the snide remark "spot the southeast asians", at which point I was promptly handed the mortar and pestle and instructed to squat and pound.







Carrot Som Tum Recipe

In a deep wooden mortar in pestle, must be deep otherwise it splashes everywhere

Pound a fist full of chilis
a few whole garlic cloves
a fist an a bit full of peanuts
2 fist fulls of chopped green beans
fist full of dried shrimps
1 to 2 chopped tomatos
a couple of cups of grated carrots
add lime
tamarind sauce
and palm sugar or brown sugar
an fish sauce of course

serve


They also had the foresight to make a crate of punch





As the day wore on, people peeled off home and me and som tum preparation leader Amporn were left drinking Chivas and arguing about Thai politics

Its Monday morning and I'm at home nursing a hangover

While sitting in Bangkok traffic who should drive by and set up shop.
10 baht of sweet corny goodness.

Most days I cycle the 400 meters to work. This short trip always takes me past my local grilled meat dealer, often I will be tempted to pick up a few assorted sticks to chow on for a linner snack. What is impressive about this particular vendor is his dedication to quality, he does not sell the processed shit that most of the other hawkers pass off for grilled goodies in my neighbourhood, obviously it takes time and effort to do the butchery, prepare the marinades, sauces etc. This dedication to quality has paid off. Initially business was slow as the narrow soi is low on foot traffic but over the year that I have been working in Bangkok and making this daily commute I have noticed that day after day business has slowly picked up and now there is a constant stream of moto drivers and other customers (yes mostly men) who drop by for their meat fix. Masta Grilla (as I like to refer to him) and his smoky charcoal stand has become so popular that much to my amusement other vendors have now tried to cash in on his trade by setting up stands next to his but with little success.
Today was a first for me in that Masta Grilla was open when I was travelling homeward bound (I slipped out early from work as the kitchen crew seemed to have everything under control) so I grabbed a chicken wing, some gizzards and a few livers and headed to the pool on the roof of my apartment. This plus some street corn and a Phuket beer made for an indulgent afternoon snack.

By the early 1800s the average American was eating almost 180 pounds of meat a year, 48 pounds more than people would consume a century later, but fresh meat remained largely unknown because of the difficulty keeping it fresh. Even city people often had chickens in the yard and a hog or two left to scavenge in the street. Until well into the nineteenth century, visitors to New York remarked on the hazard to traffic presented by wandering hogs along Broadway.

From Bill Bryson's Made in America via The Elegant Sufficiency. The answer to excess meat: the meatshake.



Real rappers drink their meat.

It's Friday night...and I should have been here





Drinking this




As I was last Friday, but I just couldn't face another wild night of drinking with anthropology doctorate students and Chinese language and history majors and discussing the relative merits of materialism versus phenomenology as philosophical approach

Just kidding, we may be geeks but we're not that geeky (only sometimes), what we did discuss is the relative merits of Little Creatures and its higher price tag versus a cheaper alternative like say Victoria Bitter.

General consensus is that everyone loves Little Creatures, it is a sophisticated brew, full of complex flavours that left our descriptive abilities somewhat stunned into mere appreciative exclaimations of "mmmmmm"..."it goes well with salt and vinegar chippies"

But really, it is a great beer, a beer that can stand up to the task of not being drunk frozen cold, I'd even drink it luke warm and that's something for an austral-asian

But in my humble beer swilling opinion, it is the shiraz of beers. You really only want to have one or two bottles while still sober so you can appreciate all those little creatures swirling around in your mouth and then move on to a lighter cheaper beer with less hangover potential, if you are perhaps more of a man than me, and have more cash to burn you may want to go for 3. But you don't want to carry on drinking it past the point where you start dicussing at which stage it is appropriate to fart in a relationship and whether or not this debases your romantic involvement, then you may as well go for a cheaper option because you'll hardly notice what you are drinking anyway

In fact it may be barely perceptible to you that you now suddenly appear to be eating chinese food at Happys in the Civic Canberra, and drinking white wine, stumbling on to drink 4 single malts at a really awful bar and and ending up in bed somehow with a chicken souvlaki and a terrible case of the vertigo

I may be up for it again in a couple of weeks, and when I am I plan on sampling their new Pilsner, (before ending up in bed with another souvlaki)

In all probability, Idris Muhammed wasn't thinking of burritos when he wrote Could Heaven Ever Be Like This. Until recently, I would have agreed with Idris, having never been convinced of the charm of this fast food until we visited Big Fat Burrito in Kensington market (the other tipped spot in town is Burrito Boyz in the Entertainment District). I had only experienced big, leaden doorstopper burritos in Seattle, that had our stomachs putting up picket fences and protesting at the horrible working conditions.

Still, my vegetable burrito confounded expectations by striking exactly the right balance between sloppy comforting ingredients like cheese and refried beans, very fresh guacamole, crispy salad and a spike of hot sauce, jalapeno and lime juice. The small size wrapped in a flour tortilla is definitely big enough to satisfy but without that leaden gut feeling. (UNLESS you eat a goat patty beforehand as I did and then you may not be able to eat for the next 48 hours and will sit the next night at a Korean all-you-can-eat BBQ watching everybody else in a meat orgy while you are left trying to convince the Korean servers that you are not freeloading). Now that I am back in Germany I already miss this crunchy, refreshing, messy comfort food.

As described by Now magazine; "Mission-style burritos, available small or large: generous fajita-style strips of sirloin in a foil-wrapped flour tortilla layered with lots of gooey cheese, crunchy diced tomato, bell pepper and the slightest hint of jalapeño, guacamole, rice and beans; the unique yam burrito loaded with lots of sugary-sweet potato and salad-like fixin’s."

Steve Spacek and Mark Pritchard enjoy their chicken burritos:





The location is also very nice with big, open air windows (no window panes) and thin plywood walls offering a 360 view of chilled out Kensington Market.

Big Fat Burrito
285 Augusta

Speaking of Torontonian West Indian food, another good spot is Patty King on 187 Baldwin St in Kensington Market. We grabbed a couple of things with Steve Spacek, who had just been jiving on a local street name - Dundas - like it was Jamaican. His reaction to the curry goat patty on coco bread? "It's good man." I tended to agree - the filling was a bit spicier and more flavourful than Albert's: but maybe that was because it was goat. Unfortunately they heated it in the microwave and the shell had that overcooked crustiness around the edges.



The Trinidadian doubles were also good (take note, vegetarians), with a salty spicy chickpea filling, though the very thin fried flat bread (which somehow also has a texture as if made from legumes, though it's just flour, turmeric etc) is quite greasy. A steal at $1.25, and you can get them here all week long.



Patty King is also a Jamaican-style bakery. When we dropped in there was a white rasta lady with very long dreads, leaning over the counter and casually saying with a patois-type twang "America is gwan be destroyed, and Canada is next, because we are right next door" as if she was discussing some neighbourhood gossip. Meanwhile her Jamaican husband helped their child to pick from calallo (spinach) patties, cookies, and cassava pone.





The sweet potato pudding was truly delicious, a chewy and glutinous cake with a spicy ginger-type flavour. One recipe I saw online did not have any ginger, and instead had rum, lime, coconut and cinnamon. But this recipe looks a bit closer, though the one from Patty King did not contain alcohol or raisins.

Following in the footsteps of Michael Pollen (will we ever stop talking about him) and his investigation into America's corn belt comes....King of Corn, a new documentary about food, America and corn

These garlic shoot tips were immersed in droplets of cryoprotecting solution, then plunged into liquid nitrogen to preserve genetic diversity of the vegetatively propagated germplasm. (Photo by Stephen Ausmus)

Aren't they pruutty

You probably aren't aware that researchers at ARS are also the experts on identifying which garlics are truly different, as opposed to the same variety with different names.

Since garlic doesn't reproduce by seeds, varieties of garlic are kept as clones, individuals with exactly the same genes. This means that if you buy a bulb of California Early garlic in a grocery story in Phoenix, Arizona, it's supposedly identical to the California Early that I buy at my local supermarket in Maryland.

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Having eaten our way through many spots of both fancy schmancy and hole-in-the-wall varieties, we were left in no doubt of the culinary charms of Toronto. I must say that this city would definitely benefit from one reliable Sietsema-type reviewer though. (I urgently recommend Sietsema to begin research on a Toronto version of his books like 'Good and Cheap Ethnic Eats in New York City': he would have a field day in Toronto no doubt). You can easily find short, vague reviews on sites like Torontoplus or Toronto-ourfaves.com, but the best bet is to google the cuisine or restaurant you're interested in with 'Now magazine'. But not even Now has a complete (or completely reliable) catalogue of the city's offerings. And trying to figure something out from Chowhound is like playing darts in the dark. Oh la! Nothing to do but make sure you have a few reliable recommendations if your time in Toronto is limited.

Toronto's circa 220,000 strong Jamaican community largely came to the city after various dubious immigration policies ended in the '60s. Some of these immigrants contributed to Toronto’s hip hop, reggae, rocksteady, soul and funk scenes since the late ‘60s: including Jackie Mittoo and veterans of the Studio One and Trojan labels. Today the legacy continues with people like Kardinal Offishall, Canada's premier hip hop artist, who brings reggae roots into his beats.

Speaking of roots & beets (bada boom!), of course the West Indian community also brought with them some culinary fiyah. Albert Wiggon came to Toronto the mid 1970s, first as a factory worker, but by age 18 saving profit to open up his own business and practise the kitchen secrets taught him by his mother. His restaurant on St. Clair Avenue West spawned the smaller branch on Queen West West.

Albert's was the spot generally recommended to us by Torontonians of Jamaican descent. For me the allspiced rice 'n' peas and oxtail gravy (always ask for extra!) outshone the actual chicken, which was juicy and falling off the bone (island-style), but we should have got spicier (there's hotsauce on the counter).

Albert's also got the thumbs up from the New Yorkers who were in town. It was from Harlem-based DJ/writer Chairman Mao that I learned how to order the ultimate late night drunk food: a patty (or two, if you're a boy) on coco bread.

Jamaicans.com says

Ah, a warm, buttered piece of coco bread and a sandy beach... no one could ask for much more than that."

Fair enough, if eating a soft, white oversize hamburger bun on the beach is what you're into. And if that's your ting, along with your patty-on-coco-bread, you drink a bottle of grapefruit flavoured -yes - Ting.

The spicy meaty warmth of the patty and its pie-like suet pastry shell, the fluffiness of the bread soaking up the spice and the juice, the sting of the ting, combine to make it a late night drunken treat par excellence. And it's not bad by daylight either.

(Here is a recipe for a vegan version of patties with coco bread).





Next time we're in the vicinity of Albert's, I hope to try an oxtail dinner with caramelized plantain, salt-cod fritters, gongo-pea soup and dumplings with gravy.


Albert's Real Jamaican Foods

542 St Clair Avenue West
Toronto - (416) 658-9445

558 Queen Street West (tell the cab driver Queen and Bathurst)
Toronto, ON M5V 2B5, Canada
(416) 304-0767

I like good wine, I dislike bad wine and that's about the sum of it. Despite the fact that I am a food blogger the link between my taste buds and that part of my brain that controls verbal description seems to be broken

Food, wine, beer is, in my books, either yummy, or not. I'm not one to start waxing lyrically about vanilla undertones or blackberry flavours, to me it all tastes like fermented grapes. Not to say that there are not good bottles and bad bottles of fermented grapes and that I can't tell the difference. I'm just not going to bore anyone with the petty details of my tongue

it's a sensual wine????? a naughty wine????? a charming wine????

Mushrooms are not actors and wine isn't a young woman.....it's wine.

So I'm so glad that someone else has been incensed with this insufferable snobbery and food fetishism and called a spade a spade

Introducting, the Anti-Wine Guide

AFP - US-born film director Jonathan Nossiter, maker of Mondovino, has released his first book - an ''anti wine guide'' which like his 2004 documentary slams overly influential critics and outrageous prices.

Launched in Bordeaux recently, Nossiter said the book, Le Gout et le Pouvoir (Taste and Power), aimed to demystify wine and make it more democratic.

In a veiled attack on powerful critics such as American Robert Parker, whose arithmetical ratings of Bordeaux wines influence sales and prices, Nossiter says it is treason to taste 300 wines and then issue mathematical calculations.

''If there were 40 people in the room tasting we would have 40 different experiences,'' Nossiter said.

''This book is an anti-guide,'' he said, not aimed at imposing one person's tastes but instead at championing the taste of the individual over that of well known critics.

The book, which will be available in English late next year, ``is a call to find another way to talk about wine, to find words that include people, not exclude them,'' he said.

It follows hot on the heels of another recently launched book that also criticises Parker, accusing him of croneyism and lack of independence.

Aside from slamming wine buffs and their snobby talk, Nossiter also takes on outrageously priced restaurants as a barrier to enjoying wines.

Describing a visit to one trendy Paris restaurant which aims to bring good foods to a wide audience, Nossiter said the wine prices were ''punishing'' with a simple white burgundy at 17 euros ($A27) a glass.

''Scandalous,'' he says for a wine that could have been priced at
1.50 euros ($A2.38).

''More than 1,000 per cent mark up, when the norm is between 250 and 300 per cent,'' the book says.

Another wine, selling at 13 euros ($A20.50) a glass, normally costs 6 euros ($A9.50) a bottle, he says, a 1,300 per cent mark-up.

When the restaurant's sommelier is asked if the wines by the glass come from bottles opened that day or the day before - as wines change taste and lose freshness when opened for too long - the sommelier says he doesn't know and that it doesn't matter.

''That is like saying to a film maker, you can screen your film on the pavement instead of the screen, no difference,'' writes Nossiter.

Asked at the launch about fears that both critics and supermarkets will eventually impose standardised wine tastes, Nossiter said: ''Despite mafia-like efforts to standardise our tastes, I think intelligent people will not accept this, and they will become more and more sceptical about wine and other things.''

Nossiter, who chose to wrote his book in French, made waves at the Cannes filmfest in 2004 with Mondovino, a documentary about the good, the bad and the ugly in world wine.

It portrayed a troubled world, one of big business taking over the vineyards of the world. Nossiter travelled three continents to recount the family sagas of billionaire Napa Valley growers, the rivalry between two aristocratic Florentine dynasties and the efforts of three generations of a Burgundy family to preserve their vines.

''Wine is a kind of guardian of Western civilisation,'' he said at the time.

Our menu...


Pumpkin cocoa broth, crab filled pumpkin flower


Whipped foie gras, rice and rocket


Venison, smoked tomato puree, polenta, purple basil


Pineapple, ginger candy, pomegranate


Brownie, chocolate and chestnut cream, mace and hazelnut crumbs, spiked blueberries


Number of guests: 103
Service time: two hours
After work drinks at 7/11....11:30 pm



An informal farewell to sous chef Khun Chalong as he has had to push forward his holidays(?) by a week as his rice has matured early, time to harvest! Have fun in Isan (อีสาน) Longie!!



"May pen ray Chef! Relax the foie espuma will be arroy!"

Khun Pong. Master of agar agar, xanthan and foie gras...cooked sous vide at 60c for 20 minutes, touch of calvados. Props to the Roca bros! Slapped into our temperamental thermo whips .



Mmmmm...grilled fish balls, chilie nori and beer chang


A final swig of beer Leo and home to dream about our loved ones who are always so far away.

Only two of the chefs I work with have family in Bangkok, the rest of us can't wait for their annual leave to get the fuck out of here to see their families and friends.



Of course mad props to A&A and Sean for inspiration galore.

I pity these poor noodles.

Captured last weekend while on a eating mission with two of South East Asia's most infamous food bloggers.

An exceptionally yummy day.

Early morning pig carcasses on the north side of the St. Lawrence Market, Toronto.

I'm ashamed to admit we only knew about this place through a visitor from NYC who had read about it in a Wallpaper magazine supplement.

At this hour of the morning, the handful of people browsing (as well as the stall-holders) were less Marc Jacobs and Northface, decidedly more in the arena of ancient parkers and homespun knits.



On Saturdays the smaller North hall is used for an organic farmer's market. We went there straight from the afterhours (in Toronto anything open past 2am is called an afterhours) at about 6am...eschewing dodgy home fries at Fran's diner for the warm, familial atmosphere of a market in its calm and sleepy opening hours. No one seemed too hurried, no one was hussling or shouting at each other – maybe it was because of the laid back Canadian temperament but the atmosphere was comparable to a provincial library, especially the spectacled, brown-cardiganned woman who stutteringly sold us her malted, hand made 7 grain bread. No shortage of strapping sons helping their dad load piles of potatoes, elk venison or jars of honey either though.





Top notch cider (we drank 2 litres in about 2 seconds):



Home made apple cranberry crisp and wild blueberry pies (we bought a pumpkin pie):



Across the street is the South hall of the St Lawrence Market which is open daily except Monday:



We were convinced by a Ukrainian lady in the basement to buy a piece of a big coiled up sausage she had just baked, which was herby and juicy. We also bought a still-warm hot cross bun:



Smoked pork hocks:



Famous Canadian peameal bacon, a variety of unsmoked lean back bacon that has been sweet pickle-cured and coated in yellow cornmeal, though originally, as the name suggests, peameal was used. This should be distinguished from the imposter that is often called Canadian bacon in the U.S. but which is actually just sliced ham. Goes great with maple syrup.



Later on that night... we cracked open the pie, which was distinguishable from store-bought pies by its light, flaky and carameralised-around-the-edges crust:



and the bread. Top marks to the lady in the brown cardigan. The bread had a dense but light crumb, just soft and crumbly enough, with a pleasant molasses undertone. With avocado and a glass of cider, a remarkably effective hang over cure.