Pizza Night

Six of 'em tonight! Three tomato-based (mozzarella di bufala, tomato sauce with a hint of chipotle, ham or salami or prosciutto, onions, red pepper -- all scantly spread -- kalamata olives, gruyère, aged cheddar and Maréchal de lait cru) and three with goat cheese, sliced cherry tomatoes and a combination of the above.

I do believe I'm getting this down. Some before and afters:

Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup (Pho Bo)

Brigitte is in Pho mode, which seems to happen every fall or so. But although I like it, it's not exactly my cup of soup as a meal. (Apparently Pho is pronounced "Feu" and is descended from the French dish Pot au feu).

But it was a challenge to see if I could match the Pho from her favorite Pho joint (Hoai Huong, on Victoria). In my research I discovered that to make it from scratch involved oxtail bones blah blah blah and I was not about to explore it with such fervor.

Luckily, I turned up a convenient can of Pho broth at Kim Phat, Cote-des-Neiges. No harm in co-opting the real thing. I added large amounts of plain old broth but also added in the spices I had found in my research -- the one giving it that indefinable "Pho" flavor being star anise, which I'd never used before.

It worked out far better than I could have expected. Brigitte said it was BETTER than the restaurant's.

So this one's Pho you.

Pho Bo (Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup)

Ingredients:

Broth

1 can (796 ml/27fl. oz./3 1/2 C) pho beef broth (available at Asian groceries) or the equivalent in beef broth
4 additional cups beef broth
2 cups chicken broth
3-4 whole cloves of star anise
I stick cinnamon
3-4 cloves
4 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1 inch ginger, frozen and grated
1 inch lemongrass, frozen and grated
1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
1 fistful cilantro, washed and shredded by hand
1 1/2 tablespoons palm sugar (brown sugar is acceptable)

Method: Bring all ingredients to boil. Partially cover and simmer fairly energetically for thirty minutes. Strain through fine-mesh strainer and reserve broth.


Broth on the simmer

Other ingredients:

1 high-quality bavette/flap steak/top sirloin steak, about 3/4 inch thick
2 generous cups bean sprouts, washed
1 small white onion, sliced thinly into rounds
2 large carrots, peeled and julienned
3 green onions (scallions, spring onions) washed and chopped into 1/4-inch rounds, 3/4 of the way to the green end of the stalk
1/2 package Banh Pho (Vietnamese flat dried rice noodles, available at your Asian grocery store)
Handful cilantro leaves, washed and torn
Whole sprig Vietnamese basil or Thai purple basil
Mint leaves, if desired

Method: Put steak in the freezer for about thirty minutes. Using a very sharp knife, slice across the grain into 1/8-inch slices. Set aside.

In a bowl of hot water, soak the noodles while the steak is freezing.

In a small pot, boil 3-4 cups of water. Plunge beansprouts in for approximately thirty seconds to blanch, remove to strainer and chill with cold water. In same pot, bring the noodles to a boil and then remove after about 2 minutes. Chill to stop cooking.

Assemble dish; heat broth to boiling point, then pour into large bowls. Add the steak, the onion, the scallions and the carrots. After about three minutes, add all remaining ingredients and serve.

Posted From My Bed In Intensive Care

Well, Brigitte takes good care of me and I AM on my bed, but the subject line could have been a true one if what could have happened the other day happened.

I have a typical apartment porcelain bathtub and I like taking a bath, not a shower. So that day I was still groggy after waking up. After washing my hair with the flexible shower head, I was ready to get out. I unplugged the bath, turned off the shower and made as to stand up; this consists of putting both hands on the sides of the tub and pulling myself upright.

However, the cleaning lady had done the bath the day before and the bath mat -- the kind with suckers -- had not completely married with the porcelain.

So as I was three-quarters upright, my right foot slipped on the slimy bathmat and I began TO GO DOWN BACKWARDS. In an instant, while it was actually happening, I parsed the damage: the back of my head would have smashed extremely hard against the back tile, first, causing certain unconsciousness, maybe a fractured skull or a subdural hematoma, but then my body would have collapsed, my spine catching the lip of the tub in the back and probably fracturing several vertebrae. It would have been quick, over in one second or less, all 160 pounds of me dropped from four feet (my hip height) to a hard porcelain surface (imagine dropping a 160-pound sack of tomatoes onto concrete from four feet and think about the damage).

It would have happened, make no mistake about it. Those two or three seconds would have changed my life irrevocably.

If not for the safety rail I'd installed a dozen years before, for when my parents visited. My hand whipped out so fast for that rail you'd need a high-speed camera to see it. It stopped my fall cold. Bolted to the side wall, it's one of those ubiquitous things you see in hospital bathrooms.

IF it hadn't been there . . . people, I might right now still be breathing through a nasal tube with several worried relatives standing around my bed and wondering whether or not to take me off life support.

One word of advice after this happening to you: don't try to chop vegetables. You'll be shaking so hard realizing what could have happened that you'll just end up cutting off the tip of your thumb.

Repeat After Me, YET AGAIN: I Am A Moron

We all remember the delightful group of tourists who playfully decided to trek through Yemen, to the bemusement of their families and the amusement of the local tribes, don't we? They loved it so much there that they never came back.

Well, believe it or not, they must have inspired this delightful elderly couple who decided to yacht sportingly into Somalian waters to visit the darkies. Just warms the cockles of the heart, doesn't it, the sheer adventurousness of the human spirit!

Review: Le Gourmet Burger

It’s tough to get a good hamburger in Montreal. Usually, the hamburgers are tough as well — because we’re in Montreal. Good buns are hard to get a hold of, unless you make them yourself, or have them made to your specifications. Most of the shops here just opt to stick with what’s already available. Perhaps Costco rolls; who knows. But the bun is half the burger and can make or break the whole thing.

No, I wouldn’t want to open a burger joint in Montreal unless I could somehow set myself apart from the pack. Rise above the Dilallos, the Anecdotes, the La Paryses, the scores of burger joints in this city that never really seem to score.

Hop across the border to New York, or across the country to San Francisco, and you’re in burger heaven. So why not Montreal?

Well, a fellow named Georges Najjar took it upon himself to set things straight, to devote himself to all things Burger. He flew around the States analyzing different burger places and what set them apart from the pack. Surfed the Internet. Krazy-glued his remote control to the Food Channel. Bought videos. In short, did massive amounts of research before he was even about to try opening a burger joint.


Musashi-san at the grill

Thus: Le Gourmet Burger. There’s m:brgr, of course, but Georges wasn’t about to start charging $19.95 for a Kobé burger with truffle oil.

No, he charges about $5 for a burger with truffle oil (truffle oil three bucks extra!) And Georges has his own dedicated butcher to whom he specifies which cuts he wants and how he wants them ground. His rolls are all custom-baked.

Gourmet Burger doesn’t have those fancy names for each burger — you know, “The Italian” or “The Singapore Swing” or some other such nonsense that so many burger joints indulge in. Here, you start with a charcoal-grilled burger, made in front of you, which comes automatically with grilled onions and tomatoes in a brioche bun. This is $5. Extras, such as cheeses, coleslaw, hummus, fried eggs, pesto, beets, hot peppers, Caramelized fig walnuts, truffle oil, foie gras etc. are all less than $3 (except for the foie gras at $5). There are several condiments available, which include wasabi mayo, Dutch mayo, garlic mayo and so on, but also includes good ol’ French’s (hello, Dillalo).

Regular fries

I opted for the regular burger with bacon and Swiss (pictured). Others at the table went for the foie gras, mushrooms . . . I can’t recall exactly, but the grill chef, with Georges’ help, whipped them out in about ten minutes. Sides were grease-free fries, either straight, sweet, or a combination.

My burger pre-condiments

Those among us who prefer to be able to specify how we wanted our burgers done (I like mine medium) were swiftly admonished, and rightly so. There are the handcuffs on burgers in this city. They MUST be cooked to well done, by law. “You’d have to sign a waiver,” said Georges, “absolving us in case you got sick.” Hmm. I’ll cogitate on that one. Got any forms at the counter, Georges?

But the burgers? Redolent of wood-smoke, large but manageable, on a soft, slightly sweet roll, the fries a tad more Montréalais than I prefer (you know, thick instead of matchstick, dark instead of golden — but I’m a Yank so it doesn’t matter) but still great with the multiple sauces — well, it looks like Georges seems to be on track to compete on the Montreal burger circuit.

And with a bill for myself and my wife including all the extras and dessert, including tax and tip hovering around $20, I’d say Georges has a good thing going here. It’s all still a bit young, but beer and wine are in the works and when they arrive I know where I’ll be going for my Montreal burger fix.

Oh, christ, almost forgot. CHECK OUT THE BATHROOM!!!!!


Le Gourmet Burger
1433B Bishop street, Downtown Montréal
(514)435-3535
Open late most nights
http://www.legourmetburger.com/

Bye-bye Birdie

I'll never make a fucking turkey again. There, are you satisfied, Miss Recent Commentatrix, that I'm again using "fowl language?" on my blog?

It wasn't a disaster. Far from it. It was a grand success. In the sense that buying a bunch of transistors from the electronics store and building a radio is a grand success. "Hey! It works! It even works great! It works even better than I ever even expected! I know I could have walked to the store and bought a transistor radio for $10 when mine cost $55 plus seven hours work, but that's beside the point! They do the same exact thing, but I did it! Not you! Me!"

Never mind that eight said they would come, but only one showed up; never mind that in the end, turkey is a pretty taste-free bird that either has to be gussied up with mountains of side dishes or just be another bland filling in a school-lunch sandwich or a major player in Jenny Craig's repertoire; never mind that it's just a total all-around hassle to prepare, maintain, serve and clean up after; never mind all that.

But it's like assembling an entire Everest expedition, complete with sherpas, oxygen, tents, Base Camp, Camp IV, South Col, summit, plant the flag! just to trek down to the corner store to get some beer.

I mean, I've never understood how keen people are to put so much effort into things that yield so little reward. Design a nuclear reactor? Years upon years upon most of your lifetime at the expense of your family, friends and collection of G.I. Joes, for WHAT exactly? My motto is, "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. Don't Sweat the Big Stuff, Either. Let Someone Else Do It."

Thus, we come to the bird.

Here, I added rosemary feathers (and garlic slivers!) under the skin to see if I could make it fly again:



but the only place it flew was into the oven.

Making turkey is high-maintenance. In the pantheon of cookery, it's up there with sausage making or apple pies from scratch. Ya gotta HAVE A DAMN GOOD REASON to make a turkey from scratch when you could just get a few turkey pieces and roast those.

My motto is: let someone else do it.

The turkey was a grand success, was extraordinarily delicious,



but I'll never (fowl language) do it again.

FreeBird

The bird flies free! It is liberated from the brine. It was so cold last night outside that I knew it would be useless to let it "thaw" in its brine on the balcony -- it would have still been an ice cube today. So I brought it into the living room.

And lo and behold, it was still near freezing but completely thawed when I dumped the brine and washed the bird at noon or so. Then I put it on a rack and put it back, naked, on the balcony, where it remains (at 11:30 p.m.) and will remain till tomorrow, air-drying in Paradise with its 20 virgin turkeyesses while I anticipate how to cook it.

Meanwhile, the gravy! Yes, all afternoon I painstakingly made the gravy (all recipes to follow upon approval of the attending masses).

Stage one was the raw stage, with onions, herbs and broth.


Stage II (the whole process takes about three hours; I kid you not) was the straining and then making the roux.


Stage III was adding back the strained broth and lovingly stirring constantly (and I mean every second of every minute while watching Season II of Columbo and drinking beer -- highly recommended for making turkey gravy) for about 30 minutes. Then add white wine and hey presto! Another thirty minutes of constant stirring and



smooth as a slug of 1956 Laphroiag single-malt scotch.

Need I remind you: tomorrow is Crunch Day. My turkey (let's call him "Dindy" for no particular reason) tells me to say hello and that really, really, he's all right on the balcony. But he could use a sweater right about now. And maybe a slug of double-malt scotch.

(He really DOES look cold, doesn't he?)