Making Waves

Watching a program tonight I was reminded of something that happened to me. We tend to think of these monstrous earth events, like hurricanes or earthquakes, as stuff that always happens to “them.”

But in 1975, in Dakar, Senegal, it almost happened to me, and I still don’t have an explanation for it. I was 18 and we had an apartment three minutes’ walk from the totally cool beach. Our favorite pastime was body surfing in the three or four-foot waves that came in at around 30 degrees Celsius.

God knows how many times I almost broke my youthful neck tumbling in the surf, but we never thought about it.

Until one day when the waves came. Maybe it was a tsunami — I’ll never be sure. Records at the time say something of an earthquake in November, but they mention mainly Hawaii being hit.

All I know is, the day I went down to the beach for my daily sunbathe I was in for a large shock. I know you’ve all seen those videos of the 2004 tsunami but I was not prepared for the sight I saw that day (and for about two days after.)

Waves that were obviously 40 feet or more were rolling in — just giant behemoths roiling with sand and mud and foaming all the way to the top, making a noise like a jumbo jet. If you had been caught in one of those, you would have been simply erased from the face of the Earth; crushed and separated like a mosquito in a washing machine.

And I knew what the walls of water could do: I’d had some bad tumbles in 7 or 8-feet high waves while body-surfing; you never knew which way was up and everything was all just green and white and even though your eyes were used to being open under salt water you just never knew what was going to happen next. Death was just seconds away. This is called being young.

I huddled with the local fishermen at the very lip of the beach while I watched them come in, wave after wave, impossibly high — words can’t muster the description of the incredible walls of water hurtling in on a perfectly clear day. After about an hour, I totally lost my nerve and beat a hasty retreat. It was just too goddamn scary -- the waves were almost reaching our feet, and we were at least 400 yards from where the shore used to be.

Later I watched more from my 18th-storey apartment as the waves continued to roll in. They consumed 90% of my familiar beach and almost rose onto the highway adjacent.

Jesus. Let us never underestimate the power of nature. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a 40-foot wave coming at you at 30 miles an hour.

Logoland

Okay, so you have a vague idea that I actually work, have a job. That has yet to be determined. I'm one step away from being Serge Tremblay with a cup on the corner. Just kidding.

But I do work as a graphic designer/video editor. Just wanted you to check out these logos I did for a firm called Freestyle; ie. FS. They were all rejected.

I am from the school of the European design. Hard-edged, able to be reproduced and read at all sizes in multiple colors. A great example of this is the FedEx logo. You won't at first notice it, but if you look closely you'll see a clear arrow between the "e" and the "x".

This is what I live for as a designer. Subtlety and elegance, hidden in a tiny shadow so that once it's pointed out to you, you go "Jesus! I didn't see that! Now I do!"

So for this company the task was to do "FS" in an innovative, easily reproducible way.

The results are this one or this one

Just out of curiosity, which one would you pick? Look for birds and other Escher-like devices. I hope I think outside the box.

Alla Historia

Okay, pezzanovantes, tu sei pazzos, what’s the best mob film ever made?

Is it Goodfellas or is it Godfather? Is it Mean Streets or is it Casino?

Whichever it is, it always involved food. Lotsa food. Hail Mary on that.

Idolic Americans

Cindy Sheehan makes the point that more Americans care who’s going to be the next American Idol rather than how many Americans are being killed and injured in Iraq.

I don’t normally take sides; although I’m American myself, I originally thought getting that fucker Saddam Hussein out was worth whatever it took. (Bush has always been an asshole, so that equation doesn’t figure here — he’ll be properly judged by history.)

But everyone deserves the luxury of changing their minds.

She’s fucking spot on about American Idol.

Listen up

Listen, ya schlubs, the trendy place to be is montrealfood.com headquarters.

Pick up your cool clothing 'n' stuff here. It's premium quality and you'll look cool anywhere in the world, even though you'll still be just a schlub.

Trust me. I'm the biggest schlub in the universe. And I spent a long time earning it.

Hey, Pandora's been replaced with last.fm

What are blogs, but online diaries? I’ve never been comfortable with the pressed-into-active-service trendy term “blog” but I guess it’s something we have to live with, along with terms along the lines of “P2P” or some other acronym of the day. I guess this is called “handing over to the next generation.” But fuck, I’m not dead yet, you little assholes.

However, it's kinda fun anyway to be able to type whatever the fuck you want and have a potential audience of twelve million, isn't it?

But putting your life out there for anyone — terrorists, child molesters, what have you — to read about . . . is that a Good Thing? I don’t have a MySpace or FaceBook page but it seems incredibly irresponsible to expose your personal details online, available to trillions of search engines.

Not to mention common sense.

Before youtube

I don’t know about your youthful exploits, but for me, the guitar and bass guitar were kind of a hobby. I made a few bucks here and there, including in Japan, where us white dudes stood out from the crowd.

But one gets older, and one regards one’s previous shenanigans in new lights, so to speak.

It’s been so long since I picked up a guitar that maybe a hair or two has gone grey, but when I listen to it it just blows me away that my younger self could have done that. Not just played it it, but invented it.

I’m not trying to brag. I just can’t figure out how my younger self actually managed to do all this shit. Christ, when I consider the mechanics of not only composing this stuff, but then dutifully recording it extremely laboriously on four-track magnetic tape, I might be forgiven for bowing down in worship mode to what I actually achieved. You can go on youtube and see Korean guitar gods but I was doing this in 1979.

I am officially in awe of my younger incarnation. How many people can say that?

Japanese Thaw

I wonder if I'm the only guy in the universe who simultaneously loves Japanese women and Annie DeMelt.

Weird juxtaposition and a definite hindrance on the dating scene. Maybe if Annie DeMelt became a geisha, or I met a female Japanese TV reporter (no, no, no, not Mutsumi Takahashi.)

I'll ask the therapist next time.

Bye-bye, Tintin

One more childhood fantasy goes up in smoke.

Toddlers' Truce

Very interesting page about early TV in Britain (around when I was in boarding school there.) Here's an excerpt:

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"In the 50s, the hours people watched television were tightly controlled - the 24 hour broadcasting of today was unheard of. The Postmaster General stipulated how many hours of television could be shown each week. In 1956, for example, the BBC was allowed to broadcast television on weekdays between 9am and 11pm, with not more than 2 hours before 1pm. There was also a period between 6pm and 7pm when no television was broadcast. This period was used by parents to trick young children into thinking that the evening's television had finished so they would go to bed without complaint - it was known as the 'toddlers' truce' -imagine that today! At the weekends, the rules were no more relaxed. A maximum of eight hours broadcasting was allowed on Saturdays and 7 3/4 hours on Sunday. On Sunday another anachronism reigned - television shown between 2pm and 4pm was intended for adults - children were meant to be at Sunday School! Gradually the rules on broadcasting hours were made less strict. The 'toddlers' truce', for example, was dropped in 1957."

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Wish they had a "toddlers' truce" today. Or at least a one-hour break on all channels. Christ, I might actually have to listen to the radio.

L’Express Raviolis Maison

I’ve always loved the Raviolis Maison at L'Express, but they cost around $16 for five. Now I know why. I decided to try to duplicate them. I was lucky enough to get a recipe of the dish by Joël Chapoulie, the chef of L’Express, through my friend Shelley, and set about trying it out. It was pretty close, and now you can do it too. Note: although I made the ravioli pasta from scratch, you can use wonton wrappers to make the ravioli. And also note: this is a picture of MY raviolis, not L'Express's! Don’t bother making the raviolis from scratch unless you have a pasta machine; they’ll be too thick.

Freeze the raviolis after you make them and you can resurrect them on demand. About 5 or 6 with the sauce will make a full meal.

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L'Express Raviolis Maison

For the filling (this step can be done the morning of the meal or the night before, but you want it cold before making the raviolis.):

1 lb mixture of ground veal, ground pork and ground beef
2 large shallots, minced finely
4 cloves garlic, minced finely
1/2 C Italian flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1/4 C white wine
1/2 C veal stock
1T flour
Salt
Cracked black pepper
Oregano
Thyme
1 1/2 C finely grated Parmigiano Reggiano (do NOT use pregrated cheese from a container. Using a Microplane grater is highly recommended.)

Sauté the meat in a little bit of olive oil on medium heat, taking care to chop it with a wooden spatula so that it becomes a fine mince. When it has browned and the liquid boiled away (about ten minutes) add the wine and let that reduce until it has been absorbed by the meat.

Remove the meat from the pan and add some more olive oil. Sauté the shallots on medium heat until glassy (about 3 minutes) and add the garlic. Add the meat back to the pan. Liberally sprinkle salt and black pepper. Add oregano and thyme (either fresh or dried); about a tablespoon for each, but you can eyeball it.

In a container, mix the flour and the veal stock until smooth. Add to the meat mixture. Add the parsley and stir well.

Now add the parmesan, making sure to distribute it evenly; you don’t want little clumps of Reggiano in the middle of the filling.

Taste frequently, adding salt as needed (a teaspoon of sugar will help round it out.) You want to end up with a fairly thick, glossy filling that when cold will be easy to shape and not crumble when you make the ravioli. The Reggiano will help as a bonding agent for this and will create great flavor.

When the cheese is thoroughly incorporated throughout the mixture, remove from heat and put the filling into a container in the refrigerator. If it is completely cold it will be much easier to handle as a filling for the ravioli.

The goal in making the filling is that it should taste good enough to be eaten on its own, but provide a burst of flavor when cooked in the ravioli, so adjust seasonings constantly and taste constantly.

Raviolis

1 1/2 C unbleached flour
1 1/2 C durum semolina
5 large eggs
4-5 cloves crushed garlic (optional)

Whisk eggs and garlic together in bowl, add to flours. Mix thoroughly with fork. Knead in bowl with hands until firm enough to transfer to cutting board. Knead until smooth, about 12 minutes, into a ball. Wrap with plastic wrap and let rest for thirty minutes.

Divide into 4 and run sections through pasta machine until the last setting (five on an Imperial pasta machine.)

Cut pasta sheets into approximately one-foot sections, flouring liberally.

For each section, place about one teaspoon of filling per two inches on the bottom half of the pasta sheet.

With a pastry brush, moisten the top half of the pasta sheet with water. Fold over the fillings and carefully press out any air between each filling. Cut out the raviolis with a pastry wheel and trim any excess. Flour liberally and freeze immediately.

To cook, drop frozen ravioli into boiling, salted water. Bring again to boil and remove with a sifter after 8-10 minutes (don’t dump them into a colander.)


Mushroom sauce

10-12 Shiitake, cêpes or other good-quality mushrooms, sliced thinly
2 1/2 cups veal stock
1/2 C sherry
2 shallots
4 cloves garlic
4 T unsalted butter
1 T flour
Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté mushrooms on medium-high heat in two tablespoons butter until they give off their liquid and begin to brown. Add shallots, garlic, sauté for 2-3 minutes. Add sherry; with kitchen match, set alight and flambé.

Add veal stock and reduce for about thirty minutes until syrupy. Add remaining butter and stir well. If still too thin, stir flour into tablespoon of water and add to sauce. Adjust sauce with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over raviolis with chopped parsley and Parmigiano Reggiano.

Junk

Rant, rant, rant

If you think I rant overmuch you should read this guy.

Yeccchh.

An idea whose time has come.

But it does remind me that my 5-year-old boy had no problem alternating between ice cream and spicy nacho chips. Dipping the chips in the ice cream might even had been acceptable; thank God I didn't give him the idea.

Or that my favorite food as a kid was spaghetti and ketchup.

Proof

Iggy, my 14-year-old Siamese cat, thought that he could get away with walking on my black damask sheets with impunity.

But the proof is now in front of you! Deny, deny, deny, Iggy, but here it is! A brief trial will ensue while I open a new tin of cat food. Maximum sentence? I will move your sun carpet two inches to the left.

Revised

Okay, here’s my revised good guys/bad guys list:

Martin Yan
Charlie Trotter
Ming Tsai
Bobby Flay
Tony Bourdain
Mario Batali
Alton Brown
Emeril*
Giada de Laurentiis

= good

Rachael Ray
Paula Deen
Ina Garten
Curtis Stone (that obnoxious Australian pretty boy)
Ricardo (that obstreperous Québecois dude by virtue of only having one name)

= evil

*Recently upgraded due to sheer perseverance!

Bam!

Words from the wise to chef/ restaurant owner wannabes.

The book I'm reading at the moment (quite sloppily written--reads more like a hardcopy blog) says that after goods, food and wine costs (approx. 35%), labor (35%) overhead (rent, utilities etc., 20%) you're left with 10% profit, which usually goes back into the restaurant.

So it looks like you're fucked if you want to be a chef and you're fucked if you want to be a restaurant owner.

Bam!

Blown Away Part II

Well, here it is, as promised: the latest portrait of my son as provided by Jack Lee, of Europic-Art.com.

It's astonishing, as usual. It stills reeks of oil paint and it has a great surface texture; no machine did this. I can't wait to get it mounted and up on the wall.

Do me a favor and get out your cameras and take a portrait of your loved one and then send it to Jack for "processing." They will truly be as blown away as I am. It's weird, like looking at your son with another mind's eyes. Blown away. The photograph of the painting just doesn't do it justice.