May 17th, 2021
I tried bison for the first time today. It was “sous vide bison with black morel crust, fiddleheads, asparagus, fennel, radish, anise, jus, and sage oil” according to the chef. Duck fat was also involved somehow? He says it makes it better? I don’t friggin’ know guys, until I met this chef guy, the highest quality food I’d had was from local London places like Icarus Restobar, Abruzzi, and Black Garlic which I’ve been told now aren’t the highest quality that the world has to offer. And I’ve gone to each of them once. Years ago. On Valentine’s Day.
Bison wasn’t the only thing on this plate that I’d never had before either. Fiddleheads, morels, and fennel were added to my food vocabulary today, and in the context of this dish at least, I have positive associations. I’d only known of fiddleheads’ existence from Stephen King’s The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. I’d had no idea they were even native to our local area. Regardless, they tasted like asparagus and brussels sprouts had a savory baby. They had a wonderful, tender crunch. The actual asparagus on the plate was much the same, and I couldn’t help but compare his asparagus to my own attempts at making dishes with it. As proud as I’d been before about pan-frying asparagus with garlic and parmesan, my dish had been lacking on all accounts in comparison.
Returning to the bison, its texture was perfect: there was enough give without being overly tender, but not making me work for my meal. In my formative years, I had a complicated relationship with meat. I’d always had trouble cutting steak cooked by my parents, and would gag on the fat, chewing it and chewing it and not making any progress. I remember more than once I was left sitting to finish the meal long after Mom, Dad and my younger sister had left the table.
I’m sitting at a very different table than the wooden one in Chatham scarred by school projects involving hot glue however. The chef’s mom corrects me on how I was holding my fork. Apparently I’ve been doing it wrong my whole life from an etiquette standpoint. Either way, it made eating meat so much easier. The chef soon joins us after he’s finished taking photos of the dish for Instagram and watches us intently, getting our impressions and only feeding himself after we’ve done everything but lick the plate clean. Despite the fact I lack the technical knowledge and vocabulary to give opinions in a more educated manner, he always wants my impressions and feelings about his dishes. It feels really good to have someone so keen on my words, even if I find myself struggling to describe food in a way that I find acceptable for my personal standards of wordsmithing.
Even though the dish was composed heavily of ingredients I’d never had experience with before, I found the dish very approachable. When I’d seen representations of fine dining on TV before meeting the chef, the portions were always tiny and created in such a way where it seems entirely alien. In short, pompous. It wasn’t hard to draw parallels between the culinary world and poetry world. Both fine dining and poetry is often placed on a pedestal by the Average Joe, and quite frequently by the proprietors of the trade. Both have specialized language used by people in the know that can alienate the layperson. Both have people at the top echelons that are admired by all those looking to improve their own craft, but are completely unknown by the majority. Thankfully, at least when it came to the crafting of his dishes, the chef puts on no airs and he’s always second-guessing himself even as he remarks on how he’s happy with the dish. We have very similar philosophies towards our passions: poetry and food should be for everybody, regardless of the consumer’s stature.
The chef had taken pains to use seasonal ingredients, and it felt like I got to experience nature in an all new way. It feels silly, but the taste, texture, and sense of passion and feelings the chef had poured into the dish had almost brought a tear to my eye. Of course, the journey of a meal doesn’t start with the finished plate.
I hadn’t expected to be eating something that I would’ve likely paid $50 for in a restaurant that I would’ve had to set a reservation for a year in advance. My plans involved getting coffee beans from the Covent Garden Market and toilet paper from Shopper’s with a few other odd ends. I asked the chef along because, well, I live alone, don’t get to go out much (especially during a pandemic), and company is always nice. After entering the market and making a beeline for Hasbeans, I let the girl behind the counter choose my beans for me as I try to explore different types of coffee through a French press acquired a Christmas or so ago. I hadn’t eaten anything yet today so I stopped by Havaris to get a sandwich, salad and kombucha. I end up buying a small package of cookies too since I’m friends with the girl who usually makes them.
We did get a little grumpy at each other over the course of this little shopping trip. I’d suggested he help me carry some things and he refused, especially when I picked up an 8-pack of La Croix (something about it having the flavour of “a banana in the next room over”) and I stubbornly held him to that even as I loaded myself down with purchases and was having difficulty carrying everything and he asked if I wanted help. Even in the course of all this, it was fascinating watching him pick out the ingredients he’d eventually use for the meal described above. Though I felt myself getting impatient at times watching him agonize over this or that package of produce or being heavily specific on what cut of bison he wanted, it was hard to not admire the effort and passion he put into his art.
After I dropped my groceries off at my apartment and had grabbed my laptop in the hopes I’d get some writing done (I didn’t get much accomplished), I apologized for my stubborn behavior. it ‘s not that I would’ve changed my behavior in any way, but I’d sensed he’d been annoyed, and even if he hadn’t, it is my very Canadian way of checking-in with friends to see how our dynamic is doing. In short, he tells me I need to stop apologizing. My blood is maple syrup man, I don’t think that’s possible. He insists that he’ll let me know if I ever annoy him (we’ve had this conversation many times) and that he’s just an asshole (he’s also said this many times). While there have been plenty of moments over the course of the year or so I’ve known the chef that could have me agreeing with such a statement, I don’t believe that for a second. While the words “abrasive” and “aggressive” could easily be applied to him, he’s like a cactus with a soft, nougaty center. No man who uses ketchup to draw a smiley face on his mother’s burger on Mother’s Day is capable of being a total asshole.
We entered the chef’s parent’s apartment (he’s in his early twenties and looking to attend more culinary school in Autumn after all) and as every time I’ve entered this apartment it felt like being invited into a different world. The stand for walking sticks has a battle axe in it, the walls bedecked with greenery and eclectic art and I’m greeted with an overzealous rough collie whose snout unabashedly pokes and prods at any area of my body she can reach.
Ravenous, I tackled the meal I bought at the market. The sandwich and kombucha was par for the course, but the beet salad was just…awful. It seemed to just be beets with some leafy green stuff I assumed was parsley thrown in. I’d always been taught to finish my meals despite how much I may dislike it because you shouldn’t waste food or be rude, but knowing I had a chef nearby who’d yet to start cooking dinner, I passed the plastic container to him and within a few minutes, He transformed it by adding salsa roja, goat cheese, porcini and basil oil, and vinaigrette. He even plated it in a pretty way. I would’ve just been happy if he had added some salt and lemon juice or something, but I suppose being extra just runs in his veins. I’ll have to look up what “salsa roja” and “porcini” is exactly.
In preparing the meal, the chef grinded the dried black morels in a coffee grinder, and he later brought over the resulting power to me and his mother to smell. The scent was beautifully subtle, when my previous experiences with mushrooms had either been scentless or an overpowering umami. This went only to increase my love and appreciation for mushrooms.
Watching the chef work is always a treat nearly equal to eating the final product. I rarely see him this focused on something, even when he’s immersed in a character or acting as a Dungeon Master in the various tabletop rpgs he’s involved in. It’ s easy to see that he’s very comfortable in kitchens, and they are a sort of sacred space to him. His parents (and to some extent his brother when he was living with them) just allow him to boss them around and kick them out of the kitchen when he’s at work in a way I don’t imagine they allow in any other situation. He talks to the food and oven, both cajoling and arguing with them. It’s almost adorable to watch. I feel like I’m being let into a world that’s wholly forgien to me. It almost makes me jealous knowing that when I’m making my own art, it’s less a dance like his and more a combination of the Math Lady and Pepe Silvia memes.
After the meal and the chef was cleaning up, he let me smell the fresh fennel, which made me think of a bok choy that’d gone fuzzy and I was taken aback that it smelled like black licorice. I was surprised that I had enjoyed that addition to the meal because I hate black licorice. “Everyone hates black licorice,” he says, “it’s not supposed to be sweet.” I guess you learn something new everyday.
There were actual mushrooms in the dish that I didn’t recognize, and the chef had forgotten the name of. Either way, he popped a leftover one into my mouth post-meal and the taste, which had been elevated from being fried in duck fat (ah, that’s what it was used for) cut me off mid-sentence. If this is how the chef plans to get me to stop talking in the future, I might not even be mad about it. My poor stomach must be very confused considering the last dinner I had was a beautifully greasy poutine pizza (yes you heard that right) from Stoner’s Grub the night before.
I have limited experience in what it means to be a chef, and yet somehow I know this man was built to be a chef from the ground up. From his small but wide hairy hobbit feet to his barrel chested build and wide shoulders to his bright blue eyes and freckles and smirk, he seems built for the hard work that comes with being in the kitchen. He’s been my gateway into food being more than just sustenance, and I’m excited to continue this foodlogue and learn more as I go.
Oh yeah, and he’s my ex. The plot thickens doesn’t it readers?